A week before Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation on November 8 , Varda Balayya, a 42-year-old farmer from Dharmaram village of Siddipet district in Telangana, was about to sell an acre of his farmland. The plot is located next to the highway connecting Siddipet and Ramayampet.
His corn crop was destroyed due to unseasonal rains in October. The interest on the loans he had taken from moneylenders and from Andhra Bank – a total of around Rs. 8-10 lakhs – was rising. He didn’t want to face his lenders without money, so he began looking for potential buyers for the most profitable one-acre portion of his four-acre plot.
“Someone has come forward to buy the land,” he told his elder daughter Sireesha before the demonetisation.
In 2012, Balayya came under great financial strain when he borrowed Rs. 4 lakhs for Sireesha’s wedding. He was further burdened by the loan he took of Rs. 2 lakhs to dig four bore wells, of which three had failed. All this had contributed to his growing debt
A few months ago, Balayya’s younger daughter, Akhila, 17, reached the intermediate level or Class 12 at college; her sister too was married at the same age. Balayya was anxious
— source ruralindiaonline.org | Rahul M. | May 19, 2022