Telangana agriculturist floats marriage bureau meant only for farmers
Reddy said his initiative is meant to find good alliances for grooms who are solely dependent on agriculture.
At a time when most of the parents are in search of grooms with high qualifications, lucrative jobs and fat bank balances for their daughters, a 40-year old farmer from Telangana’s Karimnagar district has come up with an initiative to find brides for youth who take to agriculture as a profession.
Kethireddy Anji Reddy, an agriculturist from Timmapur village on the outskirts of Karimnagar town, started a marriage bureau last week exclusively to find alliances for farmers. Called ‘Rythu Marriage Bureau’, it is meant only for farmers, irrespective of their caste, creed and religion.
“There have been marriage bureaus for all castes, religions and communities in every part of the country. But I have noticed that most of the profiles of grooms registered with these bureaus are that of employees, businessmen, engineers, doctors and various other professions, but not farmers,” Reddy said.
Even if there are a few agriculturists registered with the marriage bureaus , they are big landlords involved in other ventures. “One can hardly find any groom on their lists who depends completely on agriculture for his livelihood. Even if any educated farmer registers his name with the marriage bureau, he won’t get much response. That is precisely why I chose to start a marriage bureau exclusively for farmers,” he said.
According to Reddy, till recently, agriculture was a respectable profession in the villages and it was easy to find alliances within the villages. “But the present generation of women from agriculturists’ families is also well-educated and ambitious. They are looking for educated and well-settled grooms. As a result, youth who take up farming as a profession are finding it difficult to get marriage alliances,” he argues.
Moreover, agriculture has become an unpredictable profession of late and is subject to vagaries of weather, pesticide attacks and lack of remunerative prices. “It is not a lucrative job. Because of this uncertainty, even farmers prefer to get their daughters married off to employed grooms, if not software engineers or doctors,” he said.
Reddy said his initiative is meant to find good alliances for grooms who are solely dependent on agriculture. “The response in the last one week has been overwhelming. I am getting hundreds of calls every day from prospective grooms for registration. Interestingly, there are also a few inquiries from families of brides too,” he said.
He declared that unlike the other marriage bureaus , no commission would be collected from brides or grooms at his Rythu Marriage Bureau for arranging the marriage. “We collect a nominal registration fee of Rs 500 from those who can afford it only to run this office. If they are poor farmers, they don’t have to pay even that amount,” he said.
Reddy said his objective was to ensure that young farmers also lead a happy married life and should not be stigmatized for taking up farming as a profession.
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