G. Neelamma, the widow of tenant farmer G. Narasimhulu from Yerraballe village, Duvvuru mandal of YSR Kadapa district, has been denied compensation despite a positive recommendation by the MRO committee. “I had to deposit the Rs 1 lakh I got with a village elder as all of my creditors wanted the money. They are pressuring me to sell the plot of land on which I have a house and repay the money. I hope I get the remaining Rs 6 lakhs to repay the Rs 7.5 lakhs debt left by my husband,” she said.
R Mallikarjuna Reddy from Gopulapuram revenue village in the Duvvuru mandal (headed by a tehsildar) of YSR Kadapa district, has left farming, having lost hope.
“I sold 1.21 hectares of my land to pay debts over the last three years and have Rs five lakhs in debt still. I am not willing to take up paddy cultivation again even on a tenancy basis and have become a mason now in the near-by Proddatur town,” he told this reporter.
Tenancy in AP is the highest in the country and is pegged at 42.4 per cent according to the 77th Round Survey of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), 2019. Sustaining viability of farming for tenant farmers against this backdrop attains added significance in the state.
“The viability of pro-market economic reforms rests on keeping the farm produce prices low. I am personally in agreement with a crop holiday by farmers across the country. Until they produce enough, governments will never admit there is an agrarian crisis. The absence of a lobby for farmers has allowed the government to look the other way with impunity,” Devinder Sharma said.
Lawyers have questioned the rationale of setting up a special court recently in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh (AP), to try those found guilty of smuggling red sanders wood, endemic to the Seachalam Hills.
They said having a special court would only lead to delay in adjudicating such cases of smuggling and that the new court will be pro-state.
There are 2,348 cases booked against red sanders smugglers in AP. The
special court constituted in Tirupati, with its jurisdiction spread
across the state, will try these cases which in itself is a problem, the
lawyers said.
Rayalaseema is a region in Andhra Pradesh that comprises of eight districts that includes Chittoor and Tirupati. Weather experts at the National Atmospheric Research Laboratory (NARL) located in Gadanki, Chittoor district of the Rayalaseema region state that the changes in precipitation patterns have been visible since 2012, owing to a slow change in the IICZ (Inter Tropical Convergent Zone), a result of climate change. They say that the changes caused by anthropogenic activities cannot be denied any more.
