Manjula, a Kuruva (Backward Class) cotton farmer from Tondapalle village in Vikarabad district of Telangana, has not received the benefits of any of the welfare policies or compensation schemes of the Telangana government till date. Unlike several well-off farmers who reap government benefits, she is a tenant farmer who doesn’t own land. A woman who lost her husband to suicide due to crop loss, Manjula informs the crowd infront of her that she is in crushing debt, adding that farming is all she knows. She is also ineligible for Rythu Bima, a group life insurance scheme by the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS)-led state government that aims to help the families of farmers who lost their life due to any reason. She currently works as an agricultural labourer and has leased six acres of land to pay off a debt of Rs 5 lakhs.
Manjula and many like her had gathered at the public hearing organised by Rythu Swarajya Vedika (RSV), a farmers’ rights organisation at the Suravaram Pratapa Reddy Auditorium in Hyderabad on Tuesday, September 12. The plight of tenant farmers in Telangana has come up time and again, with many crying hoarse over how the state neglects them.
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Nakirekanti Saidulu, a tenant farmer from the Mala caste (Scheduled Caste) who hails from Narayanagudem village in Suryapet district, said that despite crop loss in 2021, the pattedars (landowners) were unwilling to accept partial lease payments. The crop loss had left him with a debt of Rs 3 lakhs. Inorder to pay the lease amount, Saidulu had to then sell the paddy he grew in the landowner’s name. Saidulu alleged, “The landowner imposed a higher lease amount so as to retain most of the money for himself, returning only a share of my Rs 2.7 lakh.”
“I contemplated suicide but reminded myself that my father also died by suicide and didn’t want to make matters worse for my children,” he said.
Tuesday’s public hearing (Bahiranga Vicharam) was attended by 120 tenant farmers from 13 districts. They said that until March 2023, when Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) declared that disaster relief for crop damage would also be given to tenant farmers, they had largely been ignored.
The meeting discussed how tenant farmers across Telangana receive no benefits from the state government. As per a survey released by RSV earlier this year, 36% of the 7,774 farmers surveyed across 34 villages in 20 districts were tenant farmers. The study estimated that if the figure is extrapolated to the entire state, there will be nearly 22 lakh tenant farmers. Of these, only 5% have received their Loan Eligibility Cards (LECs) under the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh’s Land Licensed Cultivators Act of 2011. Further, while 19% of the tenant farmers are landless, 81% have very little land.
Read: Tenant farmers in Telangana mired in debt, have no access to govt schemes
Speaking at the event, farmers rights activist Kavitha Kuruganti said that considering the money that should have ideally reached tenant farmers through welfare schemes, the state has robbed them of Rs 5000 to Rs 7000 crores.
Chief Minister KCR had said that problems faced by tenant farmers was an Andhra Pradesh-specific issue, stating that Telangana did not have many tenant farmers. “The CM’s claim has been disproved by the very presence of several tenant farmers in Telangana most of whom are from the SC/ST and OBC communities. Most tenant farmers are unaware of the 2011 law and know little about the LEC cards, which is proof of state negligence," said activist Yogendra Yadav.
RSV demanded that all political parties should ensure the recognition and inclusion of all tenant farmers in government support systems and asked for the effective implementation of the 2011 Act.