Ankapur, a role model for Telangana villages
Rich farmers
who have earned global praise for their effective agricultural practices, and a
strong NRI population, have made Ankapur self-sufficient
A small,
self-sufficient and agriculturally rich village, Ankapur is a model for all
villages in Telangana. Located in Armoor mandal on NH-63, 20 kilometres away
from the district headquarters, the village is also known as ‘mini USA’ due to
all the urban facilities it boasts of.
Farmers
are well aware of how to adopt modern methods to augment their output amid
scanty rainfall, and they therefore never look at governments for succour even
in the worst of scenarios. Hence, more than 75 per cent farmers who took crop
and other agriculture loans have already repaid the banks without seeking a
waiver.
The
village has earned recognition from national and international agricultural
research bodies such as the ICAR, ICRISAT and the International Rice Research
Institute. This, probably, is only the village in Telangana that has a separate
web portal created by its NRIs.
“We have
over 500 educated youth either working or pursuing higher studies in the USA,
the UK, the UAE and other countries. The village has sound financial strength
with the money sent by them, besides agricultural income,” says Challa Ananta
Reddy, chairman of Village Development Committee.
Women work
hard here and even though no household owns more than 10 acres of land, they
produce a maximum output. During one bumper harvest, farmers were said to have
purchased so many new cars with the remuneration from crops.
There are
22 seed processing units in the village. The red jowar seed developed here is
exported to northern India. Seed companies like Pioneer, Pro-Agro, Ganga
Kaveri, Kaveri, Tulasi and Nuziveedu have processing units in the village.
These companies have mitigated the problem of unemployment to a large extent.
It is no
exaggeration if one says that the village has no thatched houses and huts.
Inhabited by 5,689 people (as per 2011 Census), the village has 1,520
households and over 2,000 acres of cultivable land. This could be one among a
few villages which has a less number of white ration cards, according to
Village Revenue Officer Mohan.
The VDC
plays a pivotal role for the discipline and development of the village, says
M.C. Ganga Reddy, president of the Rythu Sangham.
Chief
Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, on a recent visit to the village, had praised it
and doled out several sops, while also appealing to other villages to emulate
Ankapur for its self-sufficiency.
