Telangana and Andhra Pradesh Chief Ministers turn out be Late Lateef’s in declaring drought hit mandals and in getting financial assistance from the Centre to provide farmers in both the Telugu speaking states.
Telangna Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao might pat himself with the resounding victory in the Warangal by-poll with a huge and recorded margin of majority to its party candidate. Similarly, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu could claim all the credit for being a visionary chief minister, with an unparallel track record of being an able administrator with a visionary touch. And, the chorus groups around both in the government and party around the two would not hesitate to go any length to praise both the leaders.
But, when it comes to the issues of farmers and dealing with adverse climatic conditions in which they were trapped into, there seem no differences between the two leaders and the two governments. And, both remind the Late Lateef in the Grandma stories.
Failing crops, rains ravaged fields and cyclone hit standing crops, long dry spells – this has been the story of several parts of the two Telugu speaking states since the start of Rabi agriculture season, that generally end by September.
It was by mid September every year that the state government’s sent their reports to the Centre listing out the drought hit mandals to seek financial assistance to help out the farming community in the rural yards.
But, this year, while the file relating to announcing the drought hit mandals in Andhra Pradesh had to wait for more than a month for the chief minister’s nod. His counter party and Telangana chief minister too seem followed the footsteps of his counterpart.
After much delay, the Andhra Pradesh government had announced 196 mandals in the state were drought hit in October. Again, it had come up with adding around 150 more in November. It was when the AP was preparing the its second list of drought hit mandals, the Telangana state has come up and announced a list of 231 drought hit mandals in the third week of November.
Nailing the laxity of both the government, Union Minister for Rural Development Chaudhary Birendra Singh in his recent visit to Hyderabad said, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra have already submitted their proposals for central assistance giving the list of drought hit areas in their respective states. But, the Centre could not take any steps in regard TS and AP, as they did not submit their report till the first week of November.
According to officials, generally when you submit a report the Centre would assess the same. If needed, even a team of central government officials visit the drought hit areas and release funds to the States. But, what worries officials now was that by the time the AP had announced its drought hit mandals, several of the places figured out as drought hit places were hit by heavy rains, floods at certain places. Whatever standing crops were saved with hard work of the farmers has been devastated by the incessant rains in districts like Nellore, Kadapa, Prakasam, East Godavari and the like. Now the Andhra Pradesh government has sought Rs 1000 crore immediate assistance from the Centre, indicating the preliminary estimates of loss in the rains at Rs 3,000 crore.
There is not such category like drought-cum-rain hit assistance. So, the state will get assistance to help out farmers either on account of drought, or on account of rain hit losses. But, the real picture was that the farming community had a suffered twice, first due to drought, and now because of rains. It was due to the late submission of reports by both the states that farmers in the two Telugu speaking states are at the receiving end.
