Minister for Irrigation and Marketing T Harish Rao today expressed concern that there was no cash in ATMs across the State causing a lot of inconvenience to the people and farmers. Now a situation has come that the farmers in the entire State may resort to protests at the banks and ATMs to get their money, he opined.
Launching a DCCB (District Central Cooperative Bank) branch at Siddipet, Harish Rao said the farmers, who used to stage protest for seed, fertilizrs and power supply during previous Congress rule, are now doing so at the banks for getting their cash, he bemoaned. He also urged Union Labour and Employment Minister Bandaru Dattatreya to take up the issue of non-availability of cash in the banks and ATMS to the Centre and RBI and resolve the prevailing problem.
Harish Rao urged Dattatreya to take an initiative and see that the Centre takes steps to ensure that the Banks and ATMs should have adequate cash to cater to the needs of the people. He said the TRS Government has kept its promise of giving nine hour power supply to agriculture sector and plans are on to increase it to 24 hours in future. The Centre, he said, has to increase minimum support price to paddy, cotton, maize and help the farmers.
The Marketing Minister also expressed concern that the farmers produced commercial crops such as Chilli and Turmeric are incurring losses as they did not get MSP. The Centre should immediately fix the MSP for these crops and extend a helping hand to the farmers, he said. Harish urged the Centre to withdraw GST on fertilizers. (NSS