Scores of tenant farmers from across Telangana gathered in Hyderabad on December 4, demanding implementation of Land Licensed Cultivators Act, 2011 and providing them benefits of government schemes and support.
Telangana has one of the highest numbers of tenant farmers in the country but they are excluded from state and central government funded schemes and benefits like subsidies, disaster compensation, crop insurance, crop loans, Rythu Bima life insurance, Rhthu Bharosa and crop procurement, as these are mostly given to land-owning cultivators.
At a public hearing organised by the state’s main farmers’ associations, agricultural labour unions, and tenant farmer associations, the tenant farmers demanded an immediate implementation of the Land Licensed Cultivators Act and give tenant farmers LEC (loan eligibility cards) identity cards.
The Act was brought in 2011 by the then Congress government to identify tenant farmers and extend them bank loans and crop loss compensation. While the act was still in place, it was only implemented for a few years.
Among other schemes, the tenant farmers demanded that they be given benefits of ‘Rythu Bharosa’, an investment assistance; since tenant farmers were the ones investing in cultivation.
On September 13, 2023, Chief Minister Revanth Reddy, who was then president of Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC), in an open letter to the citizens and the then state government had talked about the 2011 Act and had promised that a Congress government would implement it by giving identity cards to the tenant farmers, and provide crop loans and benefits of other schemes to the farmers.
These promises were made by the Congress when it was in opposition in Telangana, the farmers said.
The state has seen several cases of suicides by tenant farmers, in the last few years, after crop failure and getting burdened with private loans at high interest rates due to lack of support from government and banks.
A survey was done by Rythu Swarajya Vedika (RSV), an independent farmers’ organisation based in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, in collaboration with other organisations, in 2022. It had found that one out of every three farmers (36 per cent) in the state are tenant farmers and cultivating leased lands.
The figure was double the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) survey estimates of 17.5 per cent tenant holdings in the state.
On December 4, tenant farmers gave testimonies before an eminent citizens’ jury consisting of Professor G Haragopal, social activist V Rukmini Rao and former editor K Srinivas.
Among them was Karelli Yadamma from Pudur Mandal of Vikarabad district who said that her husband died by suicide due to crop losses and debts from tenant farming, and that she did not get any help as her husband had one acre of family land, but it was in the name of her husband's brother. She said that it was completely unfair to provide government assistance based only on land title.
Additionally, Dommati Lavanya from Toguta Mandal of Siddipet district, whose husband also died by suicide, said that she did not get any help and demanded that the government identify the tenant farmers and support them, in order to avoid more farmer suicides like her husband’s.
Similarly, Bingi Tirupati from Kapparla village in Tamasi Mandal of Adilabad district said that in 2018, due to the initiative of the then Collector Divya Devarajan, many tenant farmers in their village got LECs under the 2011 Act, so they also got bank loans and crop loss compensation. They were also able to get Minimum Support Price (MSP) by selling their cotton crop directly at CCI (cotton corporation of India) centres.
Also, Mundala Rajender from Both Mandal of Adilabad district said that now that the Congress government is in power, farmers demand that the 2011 Act will be implemented throughout the state and LEC cards will be issued.