Lacking commitment

Various committees appointed by the Union and state governments have visited pest-affected areas in Andhra Pradesh in the past to assess the damage to the crops. However, precious little has resulted from them. In 1988, a team headed by P D Ojha, the then deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, was formed after a spate of suicides by farmers in the districts of Guntur and Prakasam. Ojha visited the state and studied the entire problem. The committee made several recommendations to control the pest menace. But the recommendations were never implemented.

Now, a massive operation has been undertaken to study the details of the landholding, crop losses and credit status of farmers in the entire state to determine the level of their indebtedness. But how effective would this operation be in alleviating the long-standing problem of pesticide resistance remains to be seen. "It will take at least two months of investigation