Hit by cyclone Montha and heavy rains, farmers still await relief

Farmers in the State are in urgent need of compensation after being hit by heavy rains and Cyclone Montha, back-to-back. Not only has no compensation been paid for the losses suffered, but no effective crop-insurance scheme in the State makes the situation even worse, voluntary organisation Rythu Swarajya Vedika (RSV) said on Wednesday, demanding a slew of immediate measures.

The organisation, along with farmer leaders and associations from various districts, assembled in a roundtable here at Sundarayya Vignana Kendram on Wednesday to deliberate on the crisis.

According to preliminary estimates presented by the government, it said, Cyclone Montha, and rains in August damaged standing crops on 4.72 lakh acres and 2.36 lakh acres respectively. But the government is yet to pay compensation to farmers — not only for the recent losses, but also the losses reported in March and April. While preliminary estimates show that losses were in lakhs of acres, the final loss the government recognises was just about 20%. The State government, it added, also claims that funds for this were not approved by the Union government.

In addition to the inconsistent recording of losses, the forum also highlighted the exclusion of tenant farmers. Telangana is the only State in the country that has lacked any kind of crop insurance scheme since 2020, they said, while reminding the Congress’s manifesto promise of introducing an effective scheme.

The leaders demanded that all pending subsidies and arrears for crop losses during the Kharif season be immediately credited to farmers’ bank accounts. The demands also include preparation of a final loss list, including corrections of the inconsistencies; launch of a new farmer-friendly crop insurance from this Rabi season; transparent assessment of crop loss and to publish the list at the village level; a standard subsidy of ₹15,000 per acre for losses on both rainfall-fed and irrigated land should be adopted.

RSV leaders present at the Rundtable were B. Condal, Kanganti Ravi, Vissa Kiran and others.