Hyderabad: Telangana Bharatiya Janata Party president Bandi Sanjay Kumar on Wednesday demanded that the state government extend immediate relief to the farmers who suffered heavy crop losses due to unseasonal rains in the last few weeks, besides formulating a comprehensive crop insurance scheme to benefit the farming community.
In a letter written to chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, Sanjay said that the farmers of the state faced huge losses due to unseasonal rains for the last four years. “According to preliminary estimates, there is a crop loss in about four lakh acres in 27 districts, causing immense loss to more than a lakh of farmers,” he added.
“Unfortunately, this is the second time in the current Yasangi (Rabi) season that the hailstorm and heavy rains damaged the crops. In the third week of March, there was a loss of crop in five lakh acres due to hailstorm,” he pointed out.
“Surprisingly, the state government has imposed a condition that compensation would be paid to farmers only if they suffered more than 33 per cent loss of their crops. This is against the chief minister’s announcement at Ramadugu village of Karimnagar on March 23 that all the farmers who suffered losses would be paid Rs 10,000 per acre irrespective of the extent of loss,” he said.
Sanjay recalled that KCR had announced the release of Rs 228 crore immediately towards compensation for the crop loss in 2.28 lakh acres. “Nearly after a month, the government released only Rs 150 crore on April 19. But so far, not a single farmer has received even a single rupee in their accounts,” he criticised.
Sanjay said this season, various crops like paddy, maize, chillies, mango and groundnut were raised on 73 lakh acres. “As per the preliminary estimates, there was a crop loss of nine lakh acres due to hailstorms and heavy rains in the last two months. But sadly, the state government has been indifferent in assessing the exact damage to the crops,” he said.
‘KCR government is anti-farmer’
“It clearly shows that the KCR government is anti-farmer. In 2020, the state government opted out of PM Fasal Bima scheme and not a single paisa was extended to the farmers till now though there was a crop loss in 28 lakh acres in the last two years,” he said.
The BJP president accused the KCR government of shedding ‘crocodile tears’ on the plight of farmers once again in view of the forthcoming assembly elections. “For the first time in the last four years, KCR had been making field visits to hoodwink the farmers only to appease them, but not to help them,” he said.
Sanjay found fault with the Bharat Rashtra Samithi leaders for organising ‘dances and cultural programmes’ in the name of celebrating the party plenary, instead of calling on the farmers who were crying over the damaged crops.
“What is worse, instead of coming to the rescue of farmers and providing them relief, the chief minister chose to hold public meetings in the neighbouring state and claim his government as farmer-friendly, besides giving slogans like “Ab ki baar, kisan Sarkar,” Sanjay criticised.
He appealed to the chief minister to come to the rescue of distressed farmers on humanitarian grounds. “As part of that, he should send a team of officials to the affected areas and get a comprehensive report on the crop loss. He should hold a high-level meeting and take steps to extend relief to the affected farmers,” Sanjay said.
He also asked KCR to implement his promise of providing seeds and fertilisers to the farmers free of cost, apart from the Rythu Bandhu scheme. “He should also implement the promise of crop loan waiver and take a positive decision on rescuing 14 lakh tenant farmers,” the BJP president said in his letter.
