HC orders Adilabad collector to enumerate crop loss; says no need for govt approval

Hyderabad: Hearing a writ petition filed by 13 farmers from Dhannur B village in Boath mandal of Adilabad, the Telangana High Court ordered the collector to enumerate the farmers who have suffered crop loss and submit a report within two weeks.

The High Court held that the responsibility of doing the enumeration survey belongs to the district collector and there is no need to obtain the state government's approval for the survey.

Farmers of Adilabad who suffered severe crop loss due to heavy rains and flooding in July 2022 filed a writ petition in the High Court of Telangana demanding crop loss compensation. They filed the writ petition because the enumeration of their crop loss was not done despite submitting multiple petitions to mandal officials and the district collector.

The district administration of Adilabad submitted to the court the initial estimate of crop loss mandal-wise in the district where they stated that overall 29,805 farmers were affected and 1,03,305 acres of crop was damaged in Adilabad due to heavy rains in July 2022. However, they stated that they didn't proceed with the farmer-wise enumeration survey as there were no orders from the state government for the same.

Welcoming the HC direction, Rythu Swarajya Vedika (RSV) which has been fighting for the farmers' crop loss compensation urged the Telangana government to undertake enumeration of crop loss across all districts which suffered crop loss.

RSV also urged the court to take suo motu cognizance of a similar situation across the state, of utter negligence of the government with regards to crop loss enumeration and compensation, and extend similar orders to crop losses in the entire state in the current season.

"Rs. 188.23 crores which were sanctioned under the Disaster Response Fund for the crop loss of October 2020 is not yet distributed because the state government is arguing in the Supreme Court that it is too late now to identify the farmers who lost their crops. Given that the state government, for the past three years, has not been compensating the farmers for their loss and not even surveying the farmers, and also a lack of crop insurance policy in the state, this is a positive outcome for the farmers of Telangana," said RSV in a statement.