Secretary general of Consortium of Indian Farmers Associations Chengal Reddy,told The Pioneer that roughly 30-45 per cent of fruit and vegetable crop in Andhra is lying waste due to lack of transportation.

Transportation problem is hitting the farmers in a twin way — wastage and stress selling. Farmers are forced to sell their produce at throw away prices in their own region due to unavailability of transport.

On one hand this is hitting the farmers in terms of under-recovery of their input cost, on the other it is hitting the urban areas in terms of over-pricing and less supply.

Now as the Telangana Rashtra Samiti, spearheading the agitation, has embarked on its Rail Roko strategy, it is only going to get worse. TRS has called for rail roko from October 9 to 11.

Reddy informed that the turmoil is not only affecting perishable crops, it will affect paddy also, Reddy said. "As the monsoon is withdrawing now, electricity outage is affecting irrigation through ground water. Around 3 million hectare area under paddy is dependent on ground water. Next 40 days are very critical for paddy as grain formation will happen during this period, but tubewells are dry due to power blackout,".

Already paddy acreage in Andhra has gone down to 6-7 million hectare from 10 million hectare as farmers in eight districts in coastal Andhra have gone on a crop holiday as a token protest against the UPA government's "anti-farmer" policies.