First, Fast, But...

India's debut farm investment support scheme was rolled out in Telangana but a large section of the farming community has been left out

- Shreeshan Venkatesh

INDIA'S NEWEST state Telangana is witnessing an agrarian experiment of sorts. It is the first state where the government is providing land-owning farmers monetary assistance even before they plant the first seed. The scheme has even attracted the attention of the prime minister as a way to achieve the target of doubling farm income by 2022.

The reason behind the initiative, named Rythu Bandhu Pathakam or Farmers Investment Support Scheme, is the extreme agrarian distress that the region has witnessed in the past two decades. Take the case of Pottipalli village in Sangareddy district. Well into the second month of the monsoon, the farmers are still waiting for a good spell of rain. The cotton-growing village has already undertaken sowing twice this year because the first attempt failed due to lack of rains. “Last year, untimely rain and pest attacks ensured that the village suffered a 100 percent loss. A lot of hope is on this season but we have already sown twice,” says 40-year-old Mallana Dakuri, who farms on about 5 hectares (ha), a little over 1 ha of which he has rented. The village has witnessed one suicide this year and there is an overwhelming feeling of helplessness all around.

Telangana has seen close to 1,000 farmer suicides every year since 2014, says Beeram Manjeera, president of Telangana Manjira Rythu Samakyi, a state-wide farmer organisation. The state’s first Chief Minister, K Chandrashekar Rao, came to power promising relief from agrarian distress and the government has spent ₹16,600 crore so far on loan waivers.

On May 10, the chief minister launched Ryuthu Bandhu to cover input costs of seeds, labour and fertilisers (see ‘Troubled course’ on