Neglected by Rythu Bandhu, tenant farmers speak of their plight

Hyderabad: All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC) along with 24 other organisations held Cultivators Rights Meet in Hyderabad on Monday. The meeting collated hundreds of tenants, women and adivasi farmers together to speak in an outrage for excluding real cultivators from Rythu Bandhu scheme.

Women from families of farmers who committed suicides, spoke about their plight and the criminal neglect by the government. Two demands rang out clearly that the Rythu Bandhu investment support should go to the real cultivators like tenant and adivasi farmers and that all tenant farmers should be given loan and other eligibility cards as per the 2011 Licensed Cultivators Act.

Kirankumar Vissa said, “Since the Chief Minister questions the existence of tenant farmers in Telangana, we urge every tenant farmer to give a missed call so that we can show KCR that there are lakhs of tenant farmers in the state and they are ready to demand their rights.” A helpline for tenant farmers was also launched, and farmers were urged to call 8500 98 3300 to enlist their problems.

They probed that in the much-hyped Rythu Bandhu scheme of Telangana government, more than 20 lakh actual cultivators were not getting the benefit they were entitled to despite being the most deserving sections to receive “Investment support for cultivation”.

There are 15 lakh tenant farmers, nearly 2 lakh adivasi farmers cultivating forest lands, cultivators of temple and wakf lands, and lakhs of other small cultivators who do not have a proper land title – who have been kept out of the Rythu Bandhu scheme, while the benefit of Rs 8000 per acre was going to a few lakh non-cultivating land owners including business people, employees, political leaders and even NRIs, who were not spending any money on cultivation.