BRS Working President KTR and Telangana CM A Revanth Reddy
Hyderabad: In a strongly worded letter to the Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) Working President KT Rama Rao (KTR) on Thursday, May 21, took a jibe saying the former made 70 trips to Delhi “to protect his political career” but could not find the time to visit a single procurement center in the last two months.
“Had you devoted even one per cent of that energy to farmers’ welfare, this situation would never have arisen,” the Sircilla MLA said.
KTR said that farmers across Telangana had been waiting at procurement centres for nearly two months without their produce being procured, with no weighing infrastructure, no gunny bags, and no government official at the procurement centers.
He pointed to systemic failures across the procurement chain, including centres in districts from Warangal to Khammam failing to lift even one truckload per day, over 10 kg of arbitrary weight deductions at each centre, and farmers being charged Rs 50 as a deposit for a single gunny bag.
“There is not a single farmer in the state who has not taken to the streets, and not a single highway where a rasta roko has not taken place. The farmers who are cursing you today will deliver a severe political blow tomorrow,” he said.
KTR alleged that 10 farmers had died at procurement centres due to scorching heat, exhaustion and distress, while several others were allegedly forced to burn their harvested crop in despair. “Burning crop heaps on Telangana’s roads serve as irrefutable evidence of this government’s incompetence. Will you not wake up even as farmers lose their lives and set fire to their own crops?” he asked.
He urged the government to announce an ex gratia of Rs 25 lakh for the families of the deceased farmers during the cabinet meeting scheduled on May 23.
He accused the Telangana government of derailing farmer welfare schemes introduced by the BRS government and failing to conduct procurement operations effectively despite the harvest season beginning nearly two months ago.
Rama Rao said crop procurement under former chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao was planned three months in advance, with gunny bag supply, payment timelines, and field reviews monitored continuously. He reminded that even during the COVID-19 pandemic, officials visited threshing floors to procure paddy directly.
He demanded immediate intervention of the Chief Minister and ensure that the Cabinet meeting to procure all pending stocks at thousands of centres across Telangana and credit farmers with the full value of their produce.
“If you cannot manage even crop procurement, offer an unconditional apology to Telangana’s farmers. Otherwise, your government will go down in history as the greatest betrayer of the farming community,” he wrote.
This post was last modified on May 21, 2026 3:10 pm