Harinath Rao Nagulavancha

Sharmila Joshi

Editor

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By the end of July, the Sathnala resevoir in Telangana’s Adilabad district was full.
The farmers of Karanji village celebrated, hoping to irrigate their crops in
both the kharif and rabi seasons.
But a downpour on August 16 and 17 brought around 200 mm of rain. It flooded
the fields on the banks of the canals, both upstream and dowstream of the reservoir
on Sathnala river, a tributary of the Penganga, which eventually joins the Godavari. The flood washed
away the crops – mainly cotton, a bit of soyabean – leaving only stones and
sand in the farmlands.  

Between June and August this year,
Adilabad recieved 44 per cent more rain than the normal of around 880 mm for
these months. Last year, during the same months, the district received 27 per
cent less rainfall than the normal, shows data of the India Meteorological
Department. So while for many farmers 2017 was a low-income year, 2018 has so
far become a zero-income period.

Among them is Kuntawar Sangeetha of Karanji in Jainad mandal, a village of around 1360 people, located downstream
of the Sathnala dam. In June, she and her husband Gajanan planted their first
crop ever – of cotton – hoping to harvest it in January-February 2019. 

Before this first sowing on her own land,
Sangeetha was an agricultural labourer.  Gajanan too worked on an annual wage of Rs. 86,000 as
a farm labourer. He was employed on the landowner’s condition that Sangeetha would
work on the same land. Her work days were intermittent, and she earned Rs. 120
a day. “The last three years we worked with a malik (landowner),” she says.
When they could not find work, wage labour through the MGNREGS helped. “Or I
would load and unload sand onto tractors [from the Penganga, for a private
contractor],” says Gajanan.

In May 2018, Sangeetha was allotted three acres under
the state government’s Land Purchase and Land Distribution Scheme (LPS), introduced
in 2014 for landless Dalit women in families
dependent on agriculture. Karanji village is home to 340 people from Dalit
communities, 170 of them women – of whom 40 got land up to or less than three
acres, depending on whether they had got land under previous schemes or if
their families had bought any land.  

When Sangeetha got her parcel of land to cultivate, she and
Gajanan – and their three children, Soundarya, 16; Vaishnavi, 14; and Tanusha, 12 – were anxious. “As farm labourers, we didn’t know
the processes in cultivation. We only knew how to carry out the tasks that malik assigned to us.”  But the rains swept
away the Kuntawar family’s hopes.“We don’t know what to do… this is the first
time we are cultivating,” says 35-year-old Sangeetha. “It feels like the flood
has left mud in our mouths.”

Sangeetha has not
got the land title yet – the Pattadar Passbook, a small bound book that
contains details of the land owned by a person (pattadar). Digitisation of
records at the revenue department could be one reason for this delay. This meant, at the time of sowing the cotton crop in
June, she was was not eligible for a bank crop loan or support from the Rythu
Bandhu (Agriculture Investment Support Scheme) of the Telangana government,
which would have given her Rs. 4,000 per acre for each sowing season. Without
the land title, she also lost out on crop insurance under the Pradhan Mantri
Fasal Bima Yojana and the farmers’ life insurance cover under the Rythu Bima. 

“We borrowed Rs. 30,000 from the gudem dalaari
(village moneylender),” says Sangeetha. She and Gajanan used this amount to
clear and plough the land and buy seeds, fertilisers and pesticide sprays. “We were
to take our harvest to him at the end. He then deducts the loan plus interest
on it and pays the balance. But the entire crop got damaged,” adds Sangeetha,
who was not certain of the interest rate, though others here say
it is 20 to 25 per cent for the 7-8 month crop season.

In
a good year – when there are no adverse weather conditions, no pest attacks and
a reasonable minimum support price — one acre here can yield 10 quintals of
cotton and fetch a farmer Rs. 22,000 as profit.  Instead, in Karanji
village, all the 40 Dalit women who got land under the LPS lost their crops
this year. 

Preliminary surveys by the agriculture department note that 73 farmers and 323 acres 
were affected in Karanji. Across Jainad mandal, the flood impacted 5,845
farmers and 21,260 acres.

In early August, Gajanan and Sangeetha applied for a
loan from the Telangana
Grameena Bank’s Karanji branch. They submitted
land registration details (obtained from the Telangana Scheduled Castes
Cooperative Development Corporation) and a
certificate from the MRO (mandal revenue officer). By the end of September, they had received a
loan of Rs. 60,000. 

“We are thinking of growing chickpea in
the rabi season [starting this month, October] and are removing the dead
plants. We will have to borrow more money,” says Gajanan, who hopes to recover
the expenditure on cotton and the money he invested on chickpea through a
bumper harvest of chick peas.

Under the LPS, the recipients could choose the
location of the land. In Karanji, only the land next to the canal was
available. “All of us together have chosen these
lands. They are very fertile. We can irrigate our crops even in the second
season every year. That is why we were happy with the lands,” says Thallapelli
Pochanna, whose wife Thallapelli Kavitha is one of the 40 Dalit women
who was allotted land under the LPS. 

“The [cotton] plants received sufficient water
until before the floods. We prayed that the gulabi purugu [pink bollworm] should not
attack. With enough water and no pest attack, we would have got a very good
yield. But what can we do? If not the crops, at least the land remains,” says Chennur
Ganganna, the husband of Chennur Srilatha, who too got land under the LPS. 

“The land will not disappoint us.
If not this year, we are hopeful of a good harvest next year. We get floods of varying magnitude once in five years, like elections. We will face
it,” said a group of farmers gathered to tell their stories.

The devastation is no less in the villages upstream, east of the reservoir. In Syedpur, a village of  around 1,700 people in Bela mandal, around 30 kilometres from Karanji,  crops as well as cultivable land were washed away. Most of the fields are now strewn with stones. 

Among these is 35-year-old Mentham Suresh’s field. Every year, he cultivates cotton on the three acres he owns and on another 10 acres he leases. But this year, he took an additional 12 acres, expecting to make more than usual. He planned to use the profits to fund his daughter’s education. The rains turned everything upside down for the family. Instead of a profit, his debt has multiplied to Rs. 8.8 lakhs. He has to pay interest as well.  

“My elder daughter scored more than 60 per cent in Class 12 and wants to study engineering. I asked my husband to select the land [to lease] next to the canal so that we can irrigate the crops and make some more money and pay her fees,” says Pentamma, Suresh’s wife. 

Bavne Bhim Rao’s field in Syedpur was also destroyed by the flood. Of his seven acres, three were washed away, the [cotton] crops on one acre were uprooted and the [cotton] flowers on the remaining land withered. He cannot find a moneylender willing to give him a loan. So Bhim Rao – he and his wife Ujwala have a 14-month-old baby girl, Jayasree – is now working as a labourer, earning Rs. 200 a day spraying pesticides.

Some relief might be on the way, though. If the state classifies the flood as a natural disaster, the farmers could receive compensation under the State Disaster Response Fund — Rs. 2720 per acre for loss of standing crop and Rs. 4,880 for the removal of debris. “The officials inspected our crops. They assured us that we will get compensation,” says Sangeetha. She and the other farmers of Adilabad are waiting – and hoping.

‘It feels like the flood left mud in our mouths’

বানপানীয়ে আমাৰ পেটৰ ভাত মাৰি গ’ল

‘வெள்ளம் எங்கள் வாயில் மண்ணை அள்ளிப் போட்டுவிட்டதைப் போலிருக்கிறது’

‘ऐसा लगता है जैसे बाढ़ ने हमारे मुंह में कीचड़ डाल दिया हो’

’ایسا لگتا ہے جیسے سیلاب نے ہمارے منھ میں کیچڑ ڈال دیا ہو‘

‘ବନ୍ୟା ଆମ ପାଟିରେ କାଦୁଅ ଦେଇଗଲା’

'या पुराने आमच्या नाका-तोंडात गाळ भरलाय असं वाटू लागलंय'

‘বন্যা যেন আমাদের জিভে কাদার স্বাদ রেখে গেছে’

Nirmal

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‘It feels like the flood left mud in our mouths’

A downpour in August destroyed the cotton crop in the villages of Adilabad district. Many were first-time Dalit farmers with no insurance and heavy loans, now hoping for compensation and luck with the next crop

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