Steps taken to mitigate hardships of farmers: CM

Hyderabad, Sep 22 (UNI) Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy today said the government had taken steps to mitigate the hardships of farmers in the state.

In a brief interaction with the members of the Press Council of India headed by its Chairman Justice G N Ray, who called on him, the Chief Minister explained the various steps being taken up by the state government in this regard.

Keeping in view the largescale suicides of farmers for the last one decade, the Government had initiated various steps like providing free power to the farmers, waiving of power bill arrears to the tune of Rs 1200 crore, and taking up irrigation projects costing around Rs 60,000 crore.

''We have provided water to 5.50 lakh acres in the last two years, contemplated to provide water to 7.50 lakh acres this year and proposed to provide to 10 to 15 lakh acres every year for next three years onwards,'' he said.

Dr Reddy said around 3000 TMC of water was going waste into the sea every year and if only one third of these waters were utilised properly, the state would turn into lush green fields.

The Government had proposed to interlink Godavari, Krishna and Pennar rivers besides taking up several lift irrigation projects with the ultimate aim of bringing one crore acres of additional ayacut under cultivation.

Though there had been a good rainfall in several parts of the state recently resulting in substantial increase of ground water levels, still one third area of the state was reeling under drought, he added.

On the power front, the Dr Reddy said three gas-based projects were built but due to non-availability of gas they were lying idle.

The required gas would be available from 2008. The State Government was more proactive in the IT sector by giving equal importance along with agriculture.

Earlier, the Justice G N Ray said about 48 cases pertaining to Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka were heard during the last three days here.

UNI BR Roy PA MIR RAI2144