HYDERABAD: A division bench of the Telangana High Court comprising Acting Chief Justice MS Ramachandra Rao and Justice T Vinod Kumar, on Tuesday, directed the State government to take steps in three months to enumerate and assess the extensive crop damage that has taken place across the State due to excessive and incessant rains in the months of September and October, 2020.
The division bench directed the State government to extend within one month the relief/ assistance in the form of agricultural input subsidy under the National Disaster Management Act, 2005 to all farmers, including the tenant farmers. The bench also directed the State to take steps for providing additional and appropriate relief to the small and marginal farmers, who have suffered huge economic loss in the absence of crop insurance coverage, within four months.
The bench delivered the judgment in a PIL filed by Vissa Kiran Kumar and two others from Hyderabad, seeking a direction to the Telangana government to immediately initiate the process of field-level enumeration of crop and livestock losses faced by the farmers due to the incessant rains, which lashed the State during September and October 2020.
The petitioner’s counsel said that many farmers have committed suicide unable to bear the losses. After hearing both sides at length, the division bench had earlier reserved its orders and pronounced the same on Tuesday. The court pulled up the State for its failure to inform the farmers about the Prime Minister’s Fasal Bima Yojana.