Twenty-eight-year-old Venkataramanamma from remote Irsalagundam village near Konakanamitla in Prakasam district had been self-effacing taking care of her husband, a tenant farmer, and three children, till her husband committed suicide two years ago unable to bear mounting debts. Since then, the young woman had been ploughing a lonely furrow, growing crops and driving a tractor, considered a male bastion in these areas, for a living.
“I knew nothing about driving when my husband, I. Pitchaiah, died. Now I can drive the tractor even on the highways,” she says confidently while driving a tractor back home after marketing her farm produce at Podili on the Ongole-Kurnool State highway.
My husband, who took on lease 20 acres and raised tobacco and red gram, became clueless on clearing debts to the tune of ₹10 lakh after the tobacco market nosedived,” she recalls, adding that he (her husband) had even suggested that they enter into a suicide pact, which she rejected.
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“It is not that everything has turned rosy now. Red gram and chilli crops cultivated in leased land by me are facing severe moisture stress following deficit rainfall this year also,” points out the woman farmer who has, however, not lost hope. “I am trying to provide life-saving irrigation for the crops by arranging water from nearby borewells,” adds Venkataramanamma, who also ploughs the land of other farmers for a rent of ₹2,000 per acre.
Elusive compensation
She is, however, clueless on doing the necessary paper work to get the compensation of ₹5 lakh announced by the State government.
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Meanwhile, former Tobacco Board member Ch. Ranga Rao wants the revenue officials to proactively go to villages and inquire into each case of reported suicide so that the bereaved families could get the ex gratia as envisaged under G.O.421. “A majority of the families of deceased farmers have not been provided with the compensation by the government in the last two years,” he complains.