Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has announced a compensation of ₹10,000 an acre for farmers whose crop was destroyed or damaged during the last week’s hailstorm and heavy rains. He sanctioned ₹228 crore for this purpose.

According to initial estimates, crops in 90,000 hectares was damaged. This includes 52,000 hectares of maize and 30,000 hectares of paddy, that were damaged during the heavy rains and hailstorm early this week.

‘Not a single rupee from Centre’

The Chief Minister made this announcement during his visit to the hailstorm-hit areas in Khammam, Warangal, Mahabubabad and Karimnagar districts.

Flanked by Chief Secretary A Santhi Kumari, Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy and a few other ministers and officials, the Chief Minister visited the affected areas and spoke to farmers.

“We are going to extend the support to tenant farmers too,” the CM said. 

Indirectly referring to the criticism that the State government’s failure to join the Centre’s agricultural insurance scheme proved to be very costly, the Chief Minister alleged that the agricultural insurance policies were benefiting the insurance companies and not the farmers. “The country needs a comprehensive policy for agriculture. Though we submitted several reports on losses due to natural calamities, the Centre had not sanctioned not even a single rupee,” he said.

Opposition’s claims

Farmers and opposition parties, however, allege that crops in an extent of two lakh hectares were damaged. 

The Telangana Rythu Sangham has demanded the State government to announce a compensation of ₹1 lakh for maize farmers and ₹2 lakh for chilli farmers.

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