Is It Fair To Betray Small Farmers?
Pippara, West Godavari: If the rulers who are supposed to help the differently abled and bring them into the mainstream of life with assistance, themselves turn insensitive and indifferent towards them, what would be their plight? Their condition under Chandrababu is pathetic beyond description. All the differently-abled will be given Activa two wheeler vehicles and the applications needed to be submitted online, promised the Chandrababu Naidu government. Once the applications were submitted, government officials asked for LLR and made them around offices. After securing LLR with great difficulty and submitting it in the Department for Handicapped Welfare, look at the response that the differently-abled get. “ we will give you these vehicles if we get the approval from the chief minister first!“ this was narrated to me by Thatiparthi Raju of Pentapadu village.
This is the care and affection displayed by Chandrababu Naidu towards the disabled. He called the toll free number 1100 after waiting for five months, and elaborated his problem including the fact that he did not get an Activa motorbike as promised. When he filed a complaint, it was registered as a grievance about drainage in the village! This is the topsy-turvy state of affairs under Chandrababu Naidu!
I remember the Varadagopal couple who met him during the course of my padayatra in Udayagiri constituency of Nellore district, as also their sorrowful tale. Their eldest son committed suicide unable to see he difficulties his parents were going through in order to educate him because Chandrababu Naidu had narrowed down the scope of the fee reimbursement scheme to a trickle.
Our party MP Mekapati Rajamohan Reddy came forward generously to assist them, responding to my resolve to help them tide over the sudden crisis they found themselves in. The couple hailed from a very impoverished background and earned their livelihood as daily wage labourers. Thanks to large-heartedness of our Nellore MP, the younger son worked diligently and secured 94%. To share this moment of pride and happiness with me, his parents travelled all the way to show me his marks memorundum and expressed their gratitude. This gave me great satisfaction. My firm belief in strengthening the fee reimubursement scheme and introducing initiatives such as Amma Badi deepened following this interaction. Further down after I crossed Mudunuru, tenant farmers met me and shared their problems with me. They said that the Chandrababu Naidu government denied the benefits of their labout to the ground level, small farmers. After struggling round the year to cultivate their crops, these agriculturists were forced to sell their produce at select government outlets. However, to claim the money due to them they were made to run from pillar to post. Under the new regulations, banks deposite the amount directly into the accounts of the Pattadhar passbook holder who is the absentee landlord in most cases, while the tenant farmer who does the actual cultivation, is left high and dry. The irony can't be more glaring, while the actual agriculturist toils round the year for the crop it is the landlord who gets the reward for the farmers' hardwork. As a result, these small farmers are forced to sell their produce to middlemen. This is how they find themselves at the thin end of the wedge, thanks to Chandrababu Naidu.
The tenant farmers do not get loans nor do they get rights of recognition in the form of ID cards as they did during the tenure of my father, the late Dr YS Rajasekhara Reddy.
My poser to the chief minister—It is fair on your part to forget the promise which you made in your manifesto that tenant farmers would be given ID cards and that they would also enjoy the facility of taking loans from banks. Is it not true that the scale of tenancy/lease farming has declined sharply under your regime? Is it not true that no one is willing to take up tenancy farming.
