Kodanda demands compensation to farmers

Nizamabad: Telangana Political JAC chairman Prof Kodandaram demanded the State Government to immediately make payment of compensation to the affected farmers due to untimely rains and hailstorms on April 1 and 2 in the district. Mr. Kodandaram, accompanied by other leaders, inspected the damaged crops at Thumpalli village of Sirikonda mandal in the district on Sunday. Speaking to the media, he said that standing crops, which were in harvesting stage, were damaged in several hundreds of acres bringing heavy losses to farmers. The State Government has to make payment of compensation without further delay. Or else, the farmers would not be in a position to go for farming in the coming Kharif season, he said. It may be noted that standing crops � paddy, maize, jowar, tills and sunflower � were damaged due to unseasonal rains coupled with hailstorms in several villages of Nizamabad district in the first week of April. Crops were also damaged in Varni, Kotagiri, Yedapalli, Birkur and Pitlam mandals. Minister P Sudarshan Reddy, MLC D Srinivas, Nizamabad rural MLA Yendala Lakshminarayana, TDP leader Mandava Venkateswara Rao, District Collector Christina Z Chongthu and other leaders visited Sirikonda, Bodhan and other mandals and spoke to some of the affected farmers immediately after the hailstorm. However, there was no further step from Government with regard to payment of compensation to affected farmers. Meanwhile, the Agriculture officials � Joint Director of Agriculture M Narsimha and others - have submitted reports that paddy in 14,470 acres, maize in 14,767 acres, tills in 1,195 acres, bajra and sunflower in 200 acres were damaged. On their earlier visit, the officials also specified the amount of compensation eligible for each crop. In the normal course, farmers used to get 40 to 50 bags of paddy per acre. But due to the recent hailstorms, they may get 5 to 15 bags per acre. Mr. Thota Radha Kishen of Ranampalli of Kotagiri mandal says that he may not get the expenses to pay rent to a harvesting machine with the yield. Mr. Neredi Poshetty, another farmer at Sirikonda said that he cultivated paddy in five acres by borrowing Rs 1 lakh. Now, he is not in a position to repay the loan.