Naidu’s portal hosts a new website — saleofkidneys.com

Each kidney was priced at Rs 40,000. Though the amount was meagre, it was handy for the ryots to clear at least a part of the agricultural debt and reduce the interest burden. For a few of them, the amount was no less than manna to marry off their daughters.

Rentachintala, Khambhampadu and Macherla, the villages notorious for kidney sales, border the perennial Krishna river. An irrigation channel from the Nagarjunasagar dam also flows through this region. Yet, these villages are in the grip of drought too often.

Farmers in the region grow chilli and cotton and any adverse climatic condition lead to a huge fall in the yield. All those who sold away their kidneys are small ryots cultivating on leased lands.

They have suffered heavily during the last five years as their cotton and chilli failed to fetch decent prices in the market. Frequent crop failure, either due to unfavourable climatic conditions or spurious seeds, left them with little to sell.

Over 75 per cent of the ryots lead a hand-to-mouth life, unable to feed their families or clear the debts borrowed either from banks or influential landlords at exorbitant interest.

Anjaneyaswamy Manyam, an endowment land distributed among the landless poor in Rentachintala village, is the hub of all kidney selling activity. The nine farmers who sold away the kidneys live in this slum dotted with thatched huts lined along murky roads.

Khambhampadu, a nearby village is no different. Each ryot has a sorrowful tale to ell. Someone’s debt is Rs. 50,000. Some else owes Rs. 2 lakh. There is no money even to buy the daily rice. They cannot afford to send their children to school.

No wonder the touts smelled a kill. Half-a-dozen of them descended from the West Godavari and Guntur districts to prey on the poor farmers. Rs. 40,000 was offered for a kidney — the police say few kidneys fetched even Rs. 50,000 — and those willing to sell were taken to Delhi.

Like, Dirisinala Narsi Reddy, 27, who left for Delhi a month ago without information his family. His wife, Padma says, Reddy returned three weeks later without a kidney. They settled an old debt with Rs. 40,000 he received.

The Rentachintala police officials, the touts collected Rs. 20,000 as commission. The doctors who performed the surgery reportedly charged the beneficiaries Rs. 5 lakh each.

“Though the kidney sale has been going on for the past five years, it came to our notice only last month,” says Rentachintala revenue inspector Meera Vali who had come to the village to collect signed affidavits from the kidney donors.

With the media attention falling on the sleepy Rentachintala, all the nine donors “disappeared” today. When asked the villagers retorted: “What will they do. The police are questioning them. The press reporters are running after them. They do not want to speak to anybody. So they left the village.”