Farmers pour out woes before Central team, expect pittance

A groundnut crop farmer Govinda Naidu says that he could recover only 20 per cent of his investment and seek compensation and rescheduling of bank loans

Rehmadhpur (Hindupur): The 4-member Central team headed by J K Rathod visited Hindupur, Penukonda, Gorantla and Bukkapatnam regions in Anantapur district and interacted with farmers and heard their woes and pleas for crop compensation from the Centre.

Govinda Naidu, a farmer who had sown groundnut crop in 10 acres of land in Rehmedhpur village in Hindupur mandal told The Hans India after apprising a Central team member, that he had lost 80 per cent of his crop which withered away and only 20 per cent of his crop survived registering lowest yield. He demanded payment of crop compensation and rescheduling of his bank loans amounting to nearly Rs 10 lakh. Scores of farmers in other villages in Gollapalle village in Parigi mandal and Rehmedhpur made a beeline to team members to impress upon them by showing their parched crop lands and dried-up damaged crop fields.

Another farmer Naganna says he lost heavily on groundnut crop and adds that starvation and indebtedness is staring at him and unless he migrates to other places for work, there is no way he can cope up with crop losses. Similarly, many farmers felt that the drought assessment team's visit is bit too late and should have visited the district in November or December, to witness vast stretch of crop lands dried up. Farmers of the district, be it groundnut, horticulture farmers or Red and Green Gram Dal farmers are all in a despondent mood. Farmers by and large are not hopeful of any miracles happening by the visit of the team to the district on Monday.

The team visits every year, submits reports and urgent relief recommendations to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore to Rs 1,500 crore but only a pittance is released and the reports are put in back burner The team also visited cattle camps in Penukonda and Komapuram where fodder is being raised and also enquired on fodder shortage and cattle health.