The Hindu : Drought relief tardy, claims CPI leader

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 22, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Anantapur

Drought relief tardy, claims CPI leader

By Our Staff Reporter

ANANTAPUR, JAN. 21. The State secretariat member of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and former legislator, K. Ramakrishna, has alleged that the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leaders of the district had failed completely in taking the severity of drought to the notice of the State Government. As a result, the Government has been non-responsive and the people were in high discontentment.

Talking to newspersons here today he stated that the TDP leaders had been keeping quiet on the drought issue, though the Left parties and Congress had been making repeated efforts to take the issue to the notice of the Government in the form of agitations. The ruling party leaders had never represented the issue to the Government unitedly, he observed.

A team of the CPI had been visiting villages in the district from January 14 to study the impact of drought. The village economy was in complete shambles due to crop failure for the last three to five years. Farmers' efforts to keep their horticulture crops and orchards alive by sinking new borewells had forced them into heavy financial losses.

He explained that one B. Venkataramudu of Itukalapalli had sunk 13 borewells but none of the well had water now. He did not get any crop yield in his 55 acres land due to lack of rainfall this year. Ranga Reddy and his three brothers having 40 acres land at Krishnamreddipalli had been getting 550 to 800 bags of groundnut crop till five years back. However, lack of rain had left them with a meagre 8 bags yield this year.

Giving another example he stated that V. Keshanna of Sanapa village had a yield of just three bags of groundnut from his 18 acres land. He got only 11 and 6 bags, respectively, during the two previous years. Farmers ended up in heavy debts after sinking number of borewells to keep their orchards alive.

Konda Reddy, a farmer of Maruru, had sunk 12 borewells with an expenditure of Rs. 1.2 lakhs from August 2003 to January 2004. He could not save papaya and grape gardens due to lack of water in all borewells. The drought had also been forcing farmers to dispose their cattle due to lack of fodder. In Katnekalva village the farmers were left with only 10 pairs of work bullocks, against 125 pairs a year back. The impact on dairy farming was also striking. In Akutotapalli village the production of milk had come down to 270 litres a day now against 600 litres last year.

The wage works were also not reaching the needy as they were not being taken up in most of the places and the wages were too meagre wherever the work was taken up.

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