JOIN US The Union Government is planning to chalk out a crop insurance policy to bail out farmers from crisis, Union Parliamentary Affairs and Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said on Sunday.
Speaking to mediapersons in Bengaluru, Naidu said that the proposed policy would boost the irrigation sector. The need of the hour is a crop insurance scheme, he said. The minister visited a village he has adopted near Bengaluru, where he held a meeting with agriculture scientists.
The Centre and State government should jointly implement the insurance scheme because it would require a lot of capital. The Centre would give Rs 8,50,000 crore but that may not be sufficient, he pointed out.
On farmers’ suicides, Naidu said that the Opposition party, in particular the Congress, should not politicise the issue. The focus should be to solve problems. Suicides used to take place during the Congress regime and the previous NDA regime. They are also happening in the BJP and Congress ruled states. There should be no efforts to score political points over this issue, he said. He appealed to farmers not to commit suicide and said that they can avail farm loans as a temporary solution.
On Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Andhra Pradesh, Naidu said that the approach of focusing on Telugu Desam-ruled states and ignoring Congress-ruled Karnataka would not help.
On former prime minister H D Deve Gowda’s decision to go a hunger strike in Delhi over the farmers’ issue, Naidu said that the issue should not be ‘politicised’ because it would not solve problems.