Irrespective of crop failure on account of deficit rainfall, particularly due to the long dry spells during the critical stages of various kharif crops, the farming community in Telangana are required to wait at least till November-end to know whether they are likely to get any crop loss compensation, officially termed as input subsidy, or not.
The planning and revenue (on behalf of disaster management) departments have already taken up crop cutting experiments of crops such as maize, soybean, blackgram, greengram and paddy. The yields of these crops would be calculated after the completion of the exercise.
It would be taken up much later in case of cotton and groundnut.
Official sources stated that even the visit of Central Government teams to examine and assess the intensity of drought would be taken up only after the preliminary reports of deficit rainfall and crop yields were sent to them.
Though the State Government has admitted in the Assembly recently that crop damage/affected yield of several crops was over 50 per cent in a majority of 443 rural mandals, it has to be substantiated with statistics for working out crop insurance benefit and input subsidy.
As stated by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao himself in the Assembly recently, about input subsidy to the tune of Rs. 1,500 crore would be required to provide at least some relief to the farmers who have suffered crop loss due to truant southwest monsoon. However, the guidelines framed to assess drought conditions would not present such prospects, the sources said.
The widespread rains during the first fortnight of September have done more harm than good to the farmers whose crops were already affected due to adverse weather conditions.
The average rainfall deficit was about 25 per cent till August-end with Nizamabad and Medak having nearly 50 per cent deficit and Mahabubnagar and Ranga Reddy district recording nearly 40 per cent less.
However, by September-end the average deficit has come down to just 14 per cent with the four districts still having deficit ranging from 25 per cent to 45 per cent.
The prospects of farmers getting good crop insurance benefit are also not very bright since the assessment of threshold yield is not farmer-friendly.
The yield should be at least 33 per cent less than the last three years’ average yield, if the farmers have to stand any chance of getting crop insurance benefit.
Endorsing the fact, Agriculture Minister Pocharam Srinivas Reddy recently stated: “Farmers in Telangana have received crop insurance benefit of only Rs. 460 crore during 2010-14 against the premium of Rs. 702 crore paid by them under three schemes.”
