Govt firmly committed to helping farmers: Chiru

The government would help farmers who had lost their crops due to heavy rains, Union Minister of State for Tourism K Chiranjeevi told newsmen here on Monday.

The Minister was in East Godavari district to inspect rain-affected areas. He visited Visakhapatnam district earlier. Chiranjeevi inspected damaged crops in Thetagunta village of Tuni mandal on Monday.

The government was committed to helping the farming community, upon completion of the enumeration of crop and property losses caused by the heavy rains, Chiranjeevi said. As per norms, the government could give compensation up to Rs 10,000 per hectare, he said.

He offered to make efforts to have the compensation amount raised by talking to the Centre. He also promised to discuss with the Central Government the need to waive crop loans completely. Conceding that there was delay in the payment of compensation to those who had been hit by Nilam cyclone, he said that henceforth the compensation amounts would be deposited into the bank accounts of affected farmers directly in a week’s time.

Chiranjeevi said that his visits to Visakhapatnam and East Godavari districts were intended to boost the confidence of farmers who had suffered heavy losses due to heavy rains. He mentioned that 16 districts in the State had experienced heavy rains as never before in the last 50 years. Referring to recent rains, the Minister pointed out that lakhs of acres of fields had been inundated and thousands of houses damaged. In East Godavari, two lakh acres of farmland was inundated, according to preliminary estimates. He said that human loss and property loss could be prevented by solving the drainage problem permanently.

Ministers Thota Narasimham and Ganta Srinivasa Rao, MLAs K Kanna Babu, Raja Ashok Babu, P Gandhi Mohan, N Sesha Reddy, Avanthi Srinivas and others were present on the occasion.