TPCC President Revanth Reddy demanded that the government immediately pay compensation to all the farmers who had lost their crops.
Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) President & MP A Revanth Reddy on Friday demanded that the state government immediately pay compensation to all the farmers who had lost their crops due to unseasonal rains and insect attacks.
Reddy, in an open letter to Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, demanded that the chilli farmers who had lost their crops be paid a compensation of Rs. 50,000 per acre, while other farmers be given a compensation of Rs. 25,000 per acre.
Also stating that several farmers had committed suicides after they lost their crops, he demanded that their families be paid an ex-gratia of Rs. 10 lakh each.
The TPCC chief said that crops spread across 25 lakh acres of land worth nearly Rs. 8,633 crore were lost in Telangana due to the recent unseasonal rains and insect attacks.
"In the aftermath, when the Chief Minister announced that he would visit the affected areas in Warangal for inspection, the farmers had developed hopes of getting some relief. However, KCR cancelled the visit and instead sent a team of ministers and officials to the undivided Warangal district. The team neither assessed the losses nor gave any concrete assurances to the affected farmers," Reddy said.
Reddy said that this year chilli was cultivated on nearly 4 lakh acres spread across Khammam, Mahabubabad, Kottagudem, Warangal Urban, Warangal Rural, Nalgonda and Suryapet districts. The farmers invested about Rs. 1.5 lakh per acre and expected a yield of nearly 25 quintals per acre and an income of Rs. 15,000 per quintal, or nearly Rs. 3.57 lakh per acre for the entire yield.
However, their crops had been destroyed by Thrips Parvispinus, an invasive insect from Indonesia which was first seen in 2015, Reddy lamented. Consequently, as against the expected yield of 25-30 quintals per acre, the yield was less than three quintals, causing huge losses to the farmers, he said.
He said that in addition crops spread over 50,000 acres of land were damaged due to unseasonal rains in north-Telangana alone.
The crop losses had pushed thousands of farmers into huge debt traps, driving a few of them to suicides too, he said.
On an average, nearly 4-5 chilli farmers in Nalgonda, Khammam and Warangal were committing suicides every day, he claimed.
Reddy said that although the farmers were entitled to compensation for the losses to their crops due to natural calamities under the Disaster Management Act, the union government had always neglected the farmers of Telangana.
"While Rs 1,515 crore were earmarked under the 14th Finance Commission for the period 2015-20, an amount of Rs 3,310 crore was allocated for the years 2021-2026. But the state government did not utilise those funds appropriately. While crop damage was reported in 20 lakh acres in 2020, the authorities claimed compensation for just 12,32,436 acres due to faulty enumeration of losses. This amount too was not compensated by the Centre. This badly affected the farmers and pushed several of them to suicides," Reddy claimed.
Reddy said that the lack of any assistance by the union or state governments had left the farmers helpless and was driving them to extreme steps like suicides. He therefore demanded that KCR take immediate measures to pay compensation to affected farmers.