Fertiliser crisis in AP due to govt's failure: Lok Satta

Hyderabad, Jul 31 (UNI) Lok Satta president Jayaprakash Narayan today alleged that the fertilizer crisis in Andhra Pradesh was the result of ''emasculation'' of the government extension machinery and cooperative societies by the successive governments.

In a statement here, he said the government should treat the crisis as a wake-up call for energetic action. The panic and scramble among farmers as evident from serpentine queues for a bag or two of fertilizers showed that the government had forfeited farmers' trust in its ability to deliver them inputs on time, he claimed.

''The government must immediately act to overcome the short-term demand-supply gap...a medium-term programme should be launched on three fronts -- revamping of extension mechinery applying modern technology, rejuvenation of cooperatives which are languishing because of bad policies and partisan control, and democratisation of market committees to make them effective tools of farmers,'' he said.

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