Drought, power cuts devastate paddy crops across 200 acres in Sangareddy village

Sangareddy: The El Nino induced drought and power cuts had left the farming community in a distress, as standing crops have begun to wither away unveiling the emergence of a severe agrarian crisis in Telangana.

Take the case of a tribal family in Bheemala thanda in Hathnoora mandal of Sangareddy district. The elderly couple Ramavath Ithya (65), his wife Vali, their two sons Chandar and Ramesh had cultivated paddy on 16 acres, which had dried up complely now, thanks to the El Nino pattern impact and the inability of the Congress goverment to uninterrupted quality power supply.

The joint family owns nine acres of land and even though Chandar and Ramesh are married and had children, they would work together. While the family owns nine acres of land, they had taken seven acres for lease from other farmers in the village.

Speaking to Telangana Today, Ramesh (38) maintained that the family had so far spent Rs 30,000 to Rs 35,000 per acre towards seeds, tilling, fertiliser and pesticides in addition to paying Rs 25,000 lease money per acre of leased land. The family has so far suffered nearly Rs eight lakh loss this year. The crop had survived for three months and would be ready for harvesting in a month.

While the drought conditions have contributed to the misery of the tribal family, the irregular power supply had doubled the misery as the paddy crop in the entire 16 acre stretch dried up now.

Ramesh does not mince words in accusing the Congress government of not being able to supply even six hours of power supply to agriculture connections. He puts the blame for making farmes suffer on the government, citing the poor quality of power supply and the unscheduled powers cuts.

The tribal farmer maintains that his family would have saved at least five to eight acres of crop, if only the government had supplied at least 12-hour quality power a day.

Ramesh’s father Ithya rues that his family did not even approach the private money lenders and get loans after pledging the gold ornaments of their daughters-in-law, as they were not eligible for any fresh crop loans. He demanded that the government waive their loan besides announcing Rs 20,000 compensation per acre of crop loss.

It is not only the story of one single farmer in Bheemla thanda, the villagers say paddy crops on 200 acres out of 250 acres sown this vanakalam had dried up. The villagers also demanded that the government release the yasangi rythu bharosa immediately besides announcing compensation for dried up crops without any delay.

Former Minister T Harish Rao also visited the village recently and spoke to the tribal farmers to know their struggles. Harish Rao assured to raise the issue in the State assembly, seeking compensation for them.