Praja Sankalpa Yatra Diary, Day 90: My Father’s Pioneering Initiative, Arogyasri Should Be Strengthened 

Pokuru, Prakasam district: This morning as I began my yatra, Koteswaramma approached me. She said “Anna, we borrowed a gold loan of Rs. 87,000 against our pass books. Chandrababu Naidu had promised loan waivers to us before the elections and we took him at his word. Not one paisa has been waived to this day. We have been going from one government office to another, from pillar to post, in vain. We have even met the Collector without any success. We went all the way to Amaravati, but our efforts proved to be fruitless. In fact, we incurred a lot of expenditure going to all these places and running around government offices and officials. In the end, when we were told that the gold would be auctioned, we borrowed money to redeem our asset.” There were tears in her eyes as she narrated her sorrowful story. Her plight was pitiable.

Sampath had a similar tale to tell. Having pledged gold in the bank, he borrowed Rs.1.50 lakhs. In fact, he was also given a letter stating that Rs.25,000 had been waived. When he went to the bank he was told that the amount has not been received and when he approached officials concerned, they told him that they had deposited the amount and that he should pursue the matter with the bank in question. He got vexed up with running around between the bank and government offices. “This loan waiver is a big fraud, sir,” he said. “It was my fault to have borrowed Rs.1.50 lakhs believing what Chandrababu Naidu had promised us before the elections. In the end, I ended up paying over Rs.3 lakhs through my nose.” Thousands of lives were affected in this fashion due to one man’s false promise. Yet Chandrababu Naidu and his government remained unmoved.

At Vivipalem, tobacco farmers came and met me. They told me that they were incurring huge losses in tobacco cultivation. They said that they would return the licences and would give up tobacco cultivation, but no one heeded their pleas. While they got Rs.127 for tobacco during my father, the late Dr YS Rajasekhara Reddy‘s period, now 10 years later, the same crop fetched Rs.116! This itself mirrors the losses the farmer was subjected to. “Sir, you can well imagine the huge losses that we have been incurring. We are unable to survive or to make a decent living, while at the same time we are not able to migrate to other places.” This is also true of the sanega crop. After harvesting it, traders come together and the farmer gets completely cheated in the bargain. While the crop fetched us 10,000 last year, now it fetches less than Rs.4000. They are buying it from us for Rs.3800 and the same crop goes beyond 10,000 in the hands of middlemen and traders, they lamented. They asked me—“sir what kind of justice is this?” When such an important sector as agriculture is in a state of turmoil, how can the government be totally apathetic to its situation. Do they have a plan? Are they concerned about the condition of the poor, small farmer?

21-year-old Praveen Kumar, who lives in Kandukuru came and met me. His body bent over, eyes swollen, his plight was moving and his suffering indescribable. “Anna, I am a Thalassaemia patient and my sister succumbed to this ailment. My father has been subjected to great trouble on account of me and I am ridden with guilt on this count. He is a small worker in a gold shop and cannot afford to pay the cost of my treatment. When I look at the trials and tribulations he has to undergo because of my poor health, I wonder why I was born at all. In the past during your father’s time, whenever any problem related to my health arose, it was covered under the flagship healthcare scheme, put in place by him, Arogyasri. In fact, my surgery which cost several lakhs of rupees was done free of cost thanks to his pioneering initiative. I felt very happy on learning that you would grant us a pension of Rs.10,000,” he said as he held my hand. I was convinced of the need to strengthen Arogyasri and consolidate its network extensively. With this conviction, I moved on.

I have a question for the chief minister—when you asked tobacco farmers to go in for Sanega crop instead, and once they followed your advice, they find themselves at the receiving end. They are put to huge losses and are deep in debt. Who is accountable to these farmers? If the government connives with traders and businessmen, where does the poor farmer stand? If the crop eats the fence what is one to say?