Hyderabad: The Telugu Desam has asked the Telangana government to immediately release compensation and input subsidy for farmers affected by unseasonal rains and hailstorms.
Telangana TD MLA Sandra Venkata Veeraiah and senior leaders Ravula Chandrasekhar Reddy and L. Ramana met with agriculture commissioner Jagan Mohan on Friday and submitted a representation in that regard.
They brought to his notice that the crops on 1.2 lakh acres of land had been damaged by the recent rains, but the government was yet to obtain reports regarding the lo-sses from the collector and release compensation.
They said that as per the preliminary estimates released by the agriculture department, 72,632 acres of paddy crop, 16,785 acres of maize, and 7,500 acres of mango had been damaged.
They informed the Commissioner that farmers in Nalgonda, Khammam and Suryapet districts had suffered the greatest losses – 32,420 acres, 29,000 acres and 14,577 acres respectively.
They complained that officials of the Agriculture Department were estimating crop losses without conducting any ground-level verification.
Mr Veeraiah said, “Farmers are not eligible to claim insurance for their crop losses as banks delayed the disbursement of crop loans. As per the insurance norms, only those crops for which loans are given between October and December are eligible to be considered for insurance during the Rabi season. But the banks gave out the loans between January and March. Farmers are now totally dependent on the State Government for help. Unfortunately, the State Government has failed to even obtain reports regarding the crop losses.”
Mr Chandrasekhar Reddy said, “Less than 2 lakh of the 30 lakh farmers who have sown crops in the Rabi season are covered by insurance. Even these farmers have been declared ineligible to claim compensation because they failed to call the insurance firm and register their grievances within 48 hours of the crop damage occurring, due to a lack of awareness. Though a few farmers called the insurance firm, the insurance officials and officials of the Agriculture Department failed to visit their fields to assess the damage.”
