HANAMKONDA: Accusing the BRS government of ignoring the High Court orders with regard to crop loss compensation, State BJP president and Union Minister G Kishan Reddy on Sunday demanded that the State government implement a crop insurance scheme for the benefit of farmers.
Speaking to the media here, the BJP leader alleged that the State government stopped the implementation of the crop insurance scheme in 2020. The Union government, on the other hand, has been implementing the scheme and allocated around Rs 2,000 crore to the State for between 2016 to 2020, he said.
“The BRS government is not implementing the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) scheme in the State. In Telangana alone, the Centre extended the benefits of the scheme to 7.47 crore farmers in 2016 and 8.87 crore farmers in 2017 by allocating Rs 960 crore,” he added.
“The BRS government is also not following the High Court orders regarding the provision of crop damage compensation to farmers,” Kishan Reddy said, adding that the State government failed to provide Rs 10,000 as crop loss compensation to farmers in the State.
Indifferent attitude
“The State government is sitting on Rs 736 crore State Disaster Relief Fund (SDRF). Since April 1, 2023, the government has not taken any decision on spending this amount. The Union government released an additional fund of Rs 178 crore. It also granted Rs 198 crore in the current financial year. But, these funds are not being utilised,” he alleged.
“Due to the State government’s indifferent attitude people are suffering. It failed to take precautionary measures before the onset of monsoon to prevent any untoward incidents, leading to people, including farmers, suffering heavy heavy losses,” he said, adding that the special central teams, comprising officials from Finance, Agricultural, Electricity, National Highways (NH), Jala Shakti, and the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) of the Department of Space, will tour Telangana for three days to assess the damage caused by recent rains.