Hyderabad, December 19: The tall claims of the State government notwithstanding, the farmers who bore the brunt of the heavy rains and floods that lashed the state between June 1 and November 8 are yet to receive the input subsidy sanctioned for them.
The government sanctioned about Rs 685 crore over a period of six months but the officials at the district level are yet to withdraw the funds and use them for the intended purpose.
As per the estimates of the revenue department, the State incurred heavy crop losses from June 1 to November 8 due to heavy rains caused by the Southwest and Northeast monsoons, including the Jal cyclone. The State government has decided to provide input subsidy to the crops lost in about seven lakh hectares over the past six months at Rs 4,000 per hectare. Since June, the government has given ‘administrative sanction’ for Rs 685 crore towards input subsidy to affected farmers but the amount is yet to reach the beneficiaries.
For instance, for the worst-hit Karimnagar and Krishna districts, Rs 30 crore each was assured but no amount has been released to the district officials till date for taking up relief works or providing input subsidy. A similar situation prevails in Warangal district where the crop losses are estimated to be about Rs 9.2 crore till November 8.
Sources in the finance department revealed that though the government had given the administrative sanction for the funds, the amounts were yet to be credited to the accounts of the departments concerned. They attributed the delay to shortage of funds.
“There are no funds. It was only at the chief minister’s direction that we gave the administrative sanction for Rs 430 crore on Dec 15 for insput subsidy. It was just a day before chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy had announced the financial package for the farmers affected by the heavy rains in December,” said a senior official in the finance department. Given the financial condition of the state, it is anybody’s guess when the funds will be released.
—Agencies