The narrow cement lane in the Dalit colony in Kollipara leads to the house of Nakka Sudha. The yet-to-be-plastered ‘Indiramma’ house has grills but no windows to protect Sudha and her children. Her husband and a tenant farmer Nakka Sudhakar committed suicide in December 2010 unable to bear the sight of submerged paddy in his two-acre farm. The family has already been reeling under a debt of Rs. 2 lakh then.
“My husband never told us about the debt. He was optimistic that one good yield would give him enough to pay his debt. But, as years rolled by, the yield was becoming less and the debt kept on piling,” says Sudha holding back her tears, clutching her two school-going children.
Sudhakar is one among 27 farmers whose names have been entered in revenue records in Tenali division under farmer suicide category during 2004-2014. Out of them, 11 farmers died before the age of 50 years.
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Most of the farmers are tenant farmers, whose name has changed to licensed cultivators, after the A.P. government brought in an ordinance in 2011 to provide bank credit to tenant farmers grouped in Joint Liability Groups (JLG). Tenant farmers were also given loan eligibility cards so that they avail institutional credit.
But all these measures have not been able to stop suicides in the fertile Krishna western delta where alluvial rich soil and ever flowing canals help farmers raise three crops a year.
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Tenant farmers continue to be at the mercy of private money lender as institutional credit is still out of reach for many of them.
The Agriculture department claims that during 2013-2014, 2,223 JLGs were given Rs.16.15 crore bank loan, a pittance considering the fact that tenant farmers cultivate about 85-90 per cent of land. The revenue department has issued 23,512 Loan Eligibility Cards during 2013-2014, sanctioning an amount of Rs.26.54 crore.
The plight of tenant farmers has been taken up by various organisations. Communist Party of India plans to organise a series of demonstrations demanding an affirmative action to bail out debt ridden tenant farmers.
“Every tenant farmer should be given Rs.10,000 immediately to allow them buy seed. We also demand that all loans availed by tenant farmers should be waived off unconditionally and banks should be asked to step up finance,” CPI state joint secretary Muppala Nageswara Rao said.