Activists of the Human Rights Forum (HRF) and Rythu Swarajya Vedika (RSV) have urged the State government to take immediate steps for implementation of GO 43 pertaining to grant of financial assistance (₹7 lakh) and rehabilitation of the families of farmers who committed suicide.
A team of HRF and RSV functionaries visited six families of farmers who resorted to the extreme step between August 2020 and December 2021 in three mandals of Vuyyuru division in Krishna district. “All of them were tenant farmers and their principal source of income was from agriculture. With their breadwinner gone, the families are in a state of distress,” said V.S. Krishna, HRF Coordinating Committee member for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
He said none of these families had received any assistance from the government and the mandatory three-member divisional verification and certification committee, comprising RDO, Assistant Director of Agriculture and the local DSP, had not met any of these families to verification. “Even the mandal-level committee consisting of the tahsildar, agricultural officer and SI, has not spoken with the family members of the deceased, barring in one case,” he said.
He said these farmers had taken their lives out of desperation as they were unable to sustain their families due to high cost of cultivation, adverse seasonal conditions and lack of remunerative prices for their produce. Due to lack of access to institutional credit, they were forced to borrow from private money lenders, resulting in piled-up debts.
He said these suicides due to agrarian distress could have been established if the officials concerned had visited the villages and elicited facts. He said because of the deceased farmers’ proof of tenancy was not established, they were deprived of the institutional and government support given through the Crop Cultivator Rights Card (CCRC).
They met the families of the deceased farmers Kodali Ashok, Nannapaneni Chandra Sekhar and Ede Veerabhadra Rao from Katuru and Kalavapamula villages in Vuyyuru mandal, Konatham Venkateswara Rao and Somana Srinivasa Rao from Marriwada and Krishnapuram villages in Pamidimukkala mandal and Veeranki Srinivasa Rao from Pedasanagallu village in Movva mandal.
