2020 floods: HC asks Telangana why ryots weren’t compensated for losses
HYDERABAD: A division bench of the High Court of Telangana, comprising Acting Chief Justice MS Ramchandra Rao and Justice T Vinod Kumar, reserved its orders in a PIL filed by Vissa Kiran Kumar and two others from Hyderabad, seeking a direction to the State government to immediately initiate the process of field-level enumeration of crop and livestock losses faced by the farmers in September/October floods in 2020.
The bench directed Advocate General BS Prasad to explain the rationale behind the action of the government in not extending any financial assistance to the farmers who faced crop losses in the floods, despite the Central government releasing `549 crore for the same.
The AG informed the bench that the cause espoused by the petitioners was not real and the quantum of loss projected by them was also untrue, as the crop loss arrived at was based on the preliminary estimations prepared by the government. He further stated that the State had not suffered any crop loss.
After hearing the contentions of the AG, the bench observed, “Prima facie, this court will not accept your contention that there is no loss because the Central government has furnished a memo dated 7.9.2021 stating that an amount of `599 crore was deposited into the account under State Disaster Reserve Fund (SDRF) for this purpose. A Central team had visited the flooded area and assessed the crop loss.”The bench further said that the Central government had extended financial assistance to the State after the Chief Minister and Chief Secretary made a request for financial aid.