The remains of the destruction are still visible all around. Two months after untimely hailstorms lashed several parts of North India, flattening crops, injuring cattle and pounding holes in the roofs of mud houses, farmers are still struggling to pick up the pieces.
In rural Rajasthan, which was worst affected by the unseasonable weather along with Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, the suffering has many faces. In the last fortnight, five farmers have killed themselves – two in Tonk district and one each in Alwar, Beawar, Bharatpur districts. These suicides come in the wake of the death of Gajendra Singh, a farmer from Dausa, at an Aam Aadmi Party rally in Delhi.
Even today, villagers have not been able to repair their houses. Damaged wheat crops that had been ripe for harvest lie covered in dried mud. In some instances, small farmers have been forced to set fire to their ravaged crop. As per a government estimate, the hailstorms had impacted 2.3 crore people in 21,083 villages – yet, a majority of farmers have received no relief.
Last week, Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje’s government announced that it has disbursed Rs 700 crore as relief. But this is a fraction of the Rs 5,840-crore loss that the Rajasthan government estimates was caused by crop damage alone. Besides, on the ground, there are numerable signs and complaints of mismanagement of funds and relief disbursement.
Only routine relief funds
Chief Minister Raje first visited villages in the worst-affected Hadouti region on March 19, a day before Congress president Sonia Gandhi was scheduled to visit the area accompanied by former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Rajasthan Pradesh Congress chief Sachin Pilot.
The same day, Raje announced a number of relief measures, before the survey of affected farmland had even been completed. On March 30, there was another high-level visit, this time by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Union Minister Giriraj Singh and several state Bharatiya Janata Party politicians who met affected families in Bundi.
However, all these displays of competitive disaster relief politics haven’t resulted in any succour on the ground.
In case of a natural calamity, states give relief from the State Disaster Response Fund with additional assistance from the National Disaster Response Fund. Given the widespread loss in 26 of its total 33 districts, the Rajasthan government sought financial assistance of Rs 8,252 crore from the National Disaster Response Fund, the highest among all states.
So far, senior officials say the state has received no additional funds from the central government apart from the sum allocated to it annually as remittance under the State Disaster Response Fund.
“We require over Rs 11,000 crore for relief,” said a senior official in Jaipur. “Under a 75:25 fund sharing ratio, we asked for Rs 8,252 crore from the Centre. We have received only Rs 1,100 crore, which was the routine instalment due to us anyway for this year.” Rohit Kumar who is secretary, Disaster Management and Relief, declined to comment.
Ineffective relief
Problems have surfaced not just in the amount to be disbursed but the disbursal too.
In early April, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government widened the net for claiming disaster relief, allowing farmers who suffered up to 33% of crop damage to claim relief – the earlier level was 50%. Furthermore, compensation for areas with assured irrigation was increased from Rs 9,000 to Rs 13,500 per hectare, subject to a cap of two hectares per farmer. On the ground, this would translate into assistance of Rs 3,300 per bigha, with an upper limit of Rs 27,000.
Chauth Ram Gujjar, a farmer from Arain village in Kishangarh in Ajmer district, says that while his village is yet to get assistance despite damage to two-thirds of the crops, those who have got aid are angry too. “Forget Rs 3,000, some families in nearby villages got only Rs 473,” said Gujjar.
Narayan Singh Rawat, a former sarpanch of Kushalpura panchayat in Rajsamand district, said: “Most people cultivate land jointly. When they get a share of Rs 3,000 as relief, it comes to only Rs 450 to Rs 750.” He points out that the teams surveying the damage did not take into account that the fact that input costs and values of wheat, mustard, cumin, lentils, vegetables differ greatly.
Kamla Devi, a farmer in Miala Khet village in Rajsamand, added, “Officials asked us to fill forms for goat deaths, crop damage. They said we will receive Rs 1,650 per goat that died in the hailstorm. Don’t they know a goat costs Rs 5,000?”
Farmers interviewed in several districts – Alwar, Rajsamand, Bhilwara, Ajmer, Tonk – say they have no information when the help from the disaster response fund is due to reach them.
“The entire crop was damaged in my village,” said Leelavati Yadav, a farmer in Tulehra village in Alwar. “The patwari [revenue official] did a survey but officials don’t say when the relief will reach here.” Her neighbour Mehboob Khan who cultivated four bighas with three brothers set fire to their standing crop of wheat, like many others in the village, when he was unable to salvage anything. No government relief has reached Khan’s family yet, though former Congress MP from Alwar Jitendra Singh got 200 kilograms of wheat delivered to Khan’s house.
Gaps on the ground
Former MLA Amra Ram of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) notes that though the Rajasthan government has announced that relief assessments will be made on the basis of individual farmers’ losses, not of the village or block average, the shortage of staff in revenue department has made this impossible on the ground.
“There are over 10,000 panchayat and 4,800 patwaris,” he said. “Going to every farmer’s fields in two panchayats would take the patwari at least four months to complete the survey.” He questions whether patwaris are the rights officials for the task anyway. “Patwari maintain the land records, they do not have training to assess crop loss. Agricultural supervisors who are there in every panchayat could gauge this accurately, but they were not sent as part of survey teams.”
Field officials who did the village surveys admit there are gaps in the assessments. “The rules required us to include sharecroppers name as claimants, but we were in a rush to complete the assessment and were not able to do so,” said patwari Jawahar Singh Chaudhary, who was part of the survey team in Tulehra in Alwar. In several villages, residents say up to a third of all farmers were farming as sharecroppers and fear being left out.
“Ultimately, Rs 3,300 is too little,” conceded Kunj M Sharma, additional judicial magistrate in Alwar district. “It hardly covers the cost of even harvesting the crop over one bigha, or the cost of sowing.”
Abbas Khan, a farmer in Tulehra in Alwar district, sums up the general view of the disaster relief response and the political parties' reaction. “Parties want votes. Yeh siyasat karte hai, na ki hamdardi.” This is politics, there is no compassion in it.
In rural Rajasthan, which was worst affected by the unseasonable weather along with Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, the suffering has many faces. In the last fortnight, five farmers have killed themselves – two in Tonk district and one each in Alwar, Beawar, Bharatpur districts. These suicides come in the wake of the death of Gajendra Singh, a farmer from Dausa, at an Aam Aadmi Party rally in Delhi.
Even today, villagers have not been able to repair their houses. Damaged wheat crops that had been ripe for harvest lie covered in dried mud. In some instances, small farmers have been forced to set fire to their ravaged crop. As per a government estimate, the hailstorms had impacted 2.3 crore people in 21,083 villages – yet, a majority of farmers have received no relief.
Last week, Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje’s government announced that it has disbursed Rs 700 crore as relief. But this is a fraction of the Rs 5,840-crore loss that the Rajasthan government estimates was caused by crop damage alone. Besides, on the ground, there are numerable signs and complaints of mismanagement of funds and relief disbursement.
Only routine relief funds
Chief Minister Raje first visited villages in the worst-affected Hadouti region on March 19, a day before Congress president Sonia Gandhi was scheduled to visit the area accompanied by former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Rajasthan Pradesh Congress chief Sachin Pilot.
The same day, Raje announced a number of relief measures, before the survey of affected farmland had even been completed. On March 30, there was another high-level visit, this time by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Union Minister Giriraj Singh and several state Bharatiya Janata Party politicians who met affected families in Bundi.
However, all these displays of competitive disaster relief politics haven’t resulted in any succour on the ground.
In case of a natural calamity, states give relief from the State Disaster Response Fund with additional assistance from the National Disaster Response Fund. Given the widespread loss in 26 of its total 33 districts, the Rajasthan government sought financial assistance of Rs 8,252 crore from the National Disaster Response Fund, the highest among all states.
So far, senior officials say the state has received no additional funds from the central government apart from the sum allocated to it annually as remittance under the State Disaster Response Fund.
“We require over Rs 11,000 crore for relief,” said a senior official in Jaipur. “Under a 75:25 fund sharing ratio, we asked for Rs 8,252 crore from the Centre. We have received only Rs 1,100 crore, which was the routine instalment due to us anyway for this year.” Rohit Kumar who is secretary, Disaster Management and Relief, declined to comment.
Mehboob Khan in village Tulehra in Alwar whose wheat crop was destroyed. He’s still awaiting state relief.
Ineffective relief
Problems have surfaced not just in the amount to be disbursed but the disbursal too.
In early April, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government widened the net for claiming disaster relief, allowing farmers who suffered up to 33% of crop damage to claim relief – the earlier level was 50%. Furthermore, compensation for areas with assured irrigation was increased from Rs 9,000 to Rs 13,500 per hectare, subject to a cap of two hectares per farmer. On the ground, this would translate into assistance of Rs 3,300 per bigha, with an upper limit of Rs 27,000.
Chauth Ram Gujjar, a farmer from Arain village in Kishangarh in Ajmer district, says that while his village is yet to get assistance despite damage to two-thirds of the crops, those who have got aid are angry too. “Forget Rs 3,000, some families in nearby villages got only Rs 473,” said Gujjar.
Narayan Singh Rawat, a former sarpanch of Kushalpura panchayat in Rajsamand district, said: “Most people cultivate land jointly. When they get a share of Rs 3,000 as relief, it comes to only Rs 450 to Rs 750.” He points out that the teams surveying the damage did not take into account that the fact that input costs and values of wheat, mustard, cumin, lentils, vegetables differ greatly.
Kamla Devi, a farmer in Miala Khet village in Rajsamand, added, “Officials asked us to fill forms for goat deaths, crop damage. They said we will receive Rs 1,650 per goat that died in the hailstorm. Don’t they know a goat costs Rs 5,000?”
Farmers interviewed in several districts – Alwar, Rajsamand, Bhilwara, Ajmer, Tonk – say they have no information when the help from the disaster response fund is due to reach them.
“The entire crop was damaged in my village,” said Leelavati Yadav, a farmer in Tulehra village in Alwar. “The patwari [revenue official] did a survey but officials don’t say when the relief will reach here.” Her neighbour Mehboob Khan who cultivated four bighas with three brothers set fire to their standing crop of wheat, like many others in the village, when he was unable to salvage anything. No government relief has reached Khan’s family yet, though former Congress MP from Alwar Jitendra Singh got 200 kilograms of wheat delivered to Khan’s house.
Gaps on the ground
Former MLA Amra Ram of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) notes that though the Rajasthan government has announced that relief assessments will be made on the basis of individual farmers’ losses, not of the village or block average, the shortage of staff in revenue department has made this impossible on the ground.
“There are over 10,000 panchayat and 4,800 patwaris,” he said. “Going to every farmer’s fields in two panchayats would take the patwari at least four months to complete the survey.” He questions whether patwaris are the rights officials for the task anyway. “Patwari maintain the land records, they do not have training to assess crop loss. Agricultural supervisors who are there in every panchayat could gauge this accurately, but they were not sent as part of survey teams.”
Field officials who did the village surveys admit there are gaps in the assessments. “The rules required us to include sharecroppers name as claimants, but we were in a rush to complete the assessment and were not able to do so,” said patwari Jawahar Singh Chaudhary, who was part of the survey team in Tulehra in Alwar. In several villages, residents say up to a third of all farmers were farming as sharecroppers and fear being left out.
“Ultimately, Rs 3,300 is too little,” conceded Kunj M Sharma, additional judicial magistrate in Alwar district. “It hardly covers the cost of even harvesting the crop over one bigha, or the cost of sowing.”
Abbas Khan, a farmer in Tulehra in Alwar district, sums up the general view of the disaster relief response and the political parties' reaction. “Parties want votes. Yeh siyasat karte hai, na ki hamdardi.” This is politics, there is no compassion in it.
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