Gummala Venkateswaralu (45), a tobacco farmer from remote Peridepi village in Prakasam district, bought his dream motorcycle – a Royal Enfield – in 2018 on which he would ride to nearby towns to buy agricultural inputs and sell his produce .
Now, however, he has sold his precious asset with a heavy heart as he can no longer afford it due to the exorbitant cost of fuel. He now rides a modest 100-cc motorcycle as he struggles to meet the household expenses which have gone up due to the cascading effect of rising fuel prices.
He says more than 600 families in his village have a similar fate, as there is not a single house without a motorcycle. Now a big farmer, Raypatti Venkata Rao, who owns more than 40 acres of land, is the only one in the village who has the priceless motorcycle. All they say is that the cut in fuel prices is too little, and it is too late.
Sri Venkateswaralu’s wife G. “Owning a motorcycle is no longer a luxury but an absolute necessity,” says Subhashini, who rides her bike back to her farm. Thanks to the DIPAM scheme, all the households in the village had switched on the cooking gas stove on the basis of saturation. With the price of cooking gas doubling to around ₹1,000 per cylinder, firewood is back in the kitchen.
People’s income has declined by 20% after the COVID-19 pandemic. Every family in the village is under debt ranging from ₹ 2 lakh to ₹ 6 lakh. All sources of finance have dried up and no one is ready to give us loans even to meet emergency health expenses,” laments Angulkurthy Subba Rao, a landless labourer.
CPI(M) district secretary Punati Anjaneulu said India should ignore US sanctions on Iran and Venezuela and import crude from these countries to reduce the cost of crude in the interest of the working people. He said that the state government should also take recourse to tax cuts.
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