Farmers Declare Crop Holiday Under Babu's Rule

Rajahmundry: While CM Chandrababu has announced initiation of Kharif season’s cultivation with his ploughing the land through Eruvaka programme, farmers of the same Konaseema area have assembled and decided they cannot continue cultivation anymore and will declare ‘crop holiday’. They have come to this decision as they do not believe they can get their expenditure back, leave alone profits. They have decided to leave their lands barren. It is saddening to see the blow taken by the farmers due to Chandrababu’s rule.

Expenditure is the main need of farmers

Farmers mainly need expenditure. Previously, they used to take loans from banks and cultivate crops. Loans below Rs.1 lakh were granted without interest and loans from Rs.1-3 lakh were granted with 0.25% interest to farmers. But believing in Babu’s false promises about waiver of loans, farmers stopped to pay interests on their loans, giving rise to penalty charges from 14-18%. Lakhs of farmers were marked as defaulters of banks. This has blocked way for sanction of new loans from banks. Due to Call Money scam, private small-scale moneylenders were harassed by the police. So that door also has been closed for the farmers. Farmers are now left with only large scale lenders give loans for huge rates of interest.

Problems of irrigation

In Godavari districts, particularly Konaseema, agriculture is dependent on canals. But Chandrababu’s Government has started diverting Godavari waters in the name of Pattiseema, severely reducing the amount of water available downstream. There is no system available for announcement of time of water flow. Canal repair work also has not been happening since 2-3 years. All these factors together are inhibiting the availability of water to the croplands. Repeated pleas to the Government regarding this issue have gone unnoticed.

Fear of losses

Agriculture has become a fearsome issue to the farmers. Even after cultivating after all these difficulties, there is no chance of getting proper income for the crops. Hence, farmers have decided to stay away from cultivation. Farmers deciding to stay hungry rather than to perform agriculture is clearly showing the negligence of the Government.

Increased expenditure, lack of proper income, overflow of waste water canals with rains and inflow of salt water into the croplands near coastal areas have troubled the farmers of Konaseema areas so much that they have decided to declare crop holiday. Particularly, farmers of Katrenikona, Uppalaguptam, Allavaram, Malikipuram, Sakinetipalli and other areas, which are actually supposed to be flourishing with 2-3 crops a year, have come to this decision.