Hyderabad, August 29: Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy and Telugu Desam memeber D Narendra Kumar had a wordy duel in the Assembly today during a debate on compensation to chilli farmers who lost their produce in a fire in May last year.
The din followed a question posed by TD members GVS Ramanjaneyulu, P Pulla Rao, Y Srinivasa Rao, K Sridhar and D Narendra Kumar.
They wanted to know from the government the extent of loss suffered by chilli- growers in a fire in the Guntur market yard in May last year and the compensation given to them.
Replying to the question Marketing minister Damodar Rajanarasimha stated that 2,863 farmers suffered loss in the accident and about 1,677 were paid about Rs 11 crore as compensation.
Still, farmers were seeking compensation and the district collector was supervising it. A few bogus farmers were also paid the compensation.
The collector conducted an inquiry, identified 38 of them and began the recovery process.
The chief minister intervened when Narendra Kumar trained his guns on him. The chief minister said that though the government had no role in paying the compensation it took the responsibility to rescue the farmers and paid compensation.
He got angry over the remarks made by Narendra Kumar that the government was negligent.
Referring to the comments of Narendra Kumar, the chief minister said that the commission agents in the market yard had to insure their stocks but some agents in the Guntur market yard did not do so. But the government had decided to help them by making loans available to them and would give an opportunity to collect extra commission to recover their losses.
Not satisfied with the answer from the minister and the chief minister Narendra Kumar said that about 2.56 lakh bags of mirch were gutted but only 92,000 bags were taken into account while calculating the compensation.
He alleged that the market committee was not furnishing proper records to the insurance companies which were ready to pay compensation.
As the Telugu Desam member insisted on a reply for the missing records by threatening to launch an agitation, commotion took place as the Congress members also paid the TD members back in the same coin.
In the melee, the Speaker announced tea-break.
Markeging Minister Damodar Rajanarasimha said that a portion of the fee collected from the agriculture markets were used for several schemes meant for the farmers and link roads in the villages were constructed under other schemes.
He was replying to Telugu Desam members B Gopalakrishna Reddy, M Venkateswara Rao, K Hariswar Reddy, P Srinivasa Reddy, K Meenakshi Naidu and B Durgaprasada Rao who wanted to know whether the government was using the 20 percent of the income coming from the markets for construction of link roads in the villages.
TRS floor leader E Rajendar and CPM member J Ranga Reddy also deplored the government’s attitude and demanded that at least 20 percent of the income from the markets be spent on the construction of link roads.
–Agencies–