Human Rights Forum urges Andhra Pradesh government to implement GO 43 in time-bound manner

VIJAYAWADA: The Human Rights Forum (HRF) and the Rythu Swarajya Vedika (RSV) have urged the State government to stop neglecting the plight of families of farmers who have committed suicide, and implement GO 43 in a time-bound manner.

At present, the implementation of GO 43, which provides a financial assistance of Rs 7 lakh and rehabilitation package to the families of deceased farmers, is appalling, they said.

A six-member HRF and RSV team visited 14 villages in Nandyal and Kadapa districts a few days ago and met family members of 17 farmers who committed suicide, to ascertain reasons for their extreme step and study the response from the government.

The 14 villages are located in Gospadu, Uyyalawada and Allagadda (Nandyal division), Banaganapalli (Dhone), Mylavaram, Peddamudium ( Jammalamadugu division), Duvuru (Badvel) in Kadapa district. It interacted with the family members of the deceased farmers, their relatives and local residents.

"Our enquiries revealed that the deceased were overwhelmingly small and marginal tenant farmers who raised chilli, cotton and chickpea crops in mostly dry rain-fed area. Lack of institutional credit is a principal reason for the farmers being rendered helpless. Given high input costs, failing or excessive and untimely rains and inadequate price for their output, they were pushed into a cycle of debts they had incurred in the process of cultivation. They ended their lives, either by consuming poison or hanging, after being driven to absolute despair due to successive crop failures and being unable to repay accumulating debts," the HRF and RSV fact-finding team said. 

The team included VS Krishna, member of HRF AP and TS Coordination Committee, B Kondal, RSV State committee member, UG Srinivasulu, HRF AP State president, UM Devendra Babu, secretary, and K Anuradha, executive committee member.

The team said all the deceased farmers come under the purview of GO 43 and their families should be extended aid by the government. The families were not extended any aid and in some cases, even three years after the ryots’ suicide.

"We have no reason to believe the situation is any different in the remaining areas of the two districts. Families of farmers, who have taken their own lives, have been abandoned by the government," they alleged.

The team said the three-member verification and certification committee headed by the RDO has not visited any of the 17 families they met to determine fact as is mandated under the GO 43. "In only a few cases, the mandal-level committee headed by tahsildar, spoke to the family members of the deceased. The tahsildars have been telling the families that they are not eligible for compensation under the GO 43 since they do not possess the Crop Cultivator Rights Card (CCRC). This is a specious argument in all such cases, proof of tenancy could have been easily established had the administration been serious at all," the team asserted.