No farming, no sop
THE RABI crop is done in 56 lakh acres due to nonavailability of water. This means that more than half of the cultivable land will not be eligible for the financial aid.
The Telangana state government’s ambitious `8,000 per acre, per year, financial assistance for farmers from May this year may come with a rider.
The amount will be disbursed in two instalments of `4,000 each, for the kharif and rabi seasons.
However, not every one of the 71 lakh farmers will get the same amount because the government wants to take the average crop sown area as the benchmark. At least that is the recommendation of the government sub-committee. The total crop sown area is 1.42 crore acres. But it is only in the kharif season, in June, that there is full-scale cultivation.
The rabi crop, sown in October, is at just 56 lakh acres due to non-availability of water.
This means that more than half of the total cultivable land in the state will not be eligible for the financial assistance in the rabi season.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has to take a final call on this recommendation.
The burden on the state exchequer in the kharif season has been estimated at `5,731 crore. In the rabi season it will come down drastically to `2,238 crore as the cultivated area is less. The overall burden on the state government per year has been pegged at `7,969 crore.
The government has secured the state 1 clearance to acquire some 3,800 acres of reserve forests for the Sitarama lift irrigation project, affecting the flora, fauna and wildlife of Bhadrari-Kothagudem district.
The forest is rich in biodiversity with 1,939 species of plants, 165 of bird, 103 mammals, 21 species and 13 amphibian species.
The district has dense teak forests along the banks of the river Godavari, from Pinapaka to Burgumpahad mandals. Nallamaddi, yegisa, rose wood, narepa, and bamboo flourish as well.
To accommodate the canal of the Sitarama project, about 2.5 lakh trees and plants will be destroyed. Many of these trees are a hundred years old. It is estimated that 2.5 lakh trees will die.
Environmentalists say it will take over 1,000 years to re-grow a similar project.
When the forest department hands over the 3,800 acres of land, it will cut down all the plants and trees on the land.
The ecological balance, bio-diversity conservation, conservation of soil and moisture, regulating the water flow, green house gas mitigation, sequestering carbon-dioxide from the atmosphere will all be adversely affected by the action of the state government.
The justification is the benefits the project will bring to the area — it is expected to irrigate 6.74 lakh acres including creation of irrigation potential of 3.28 lakh acres in Khammam and BhadradriKothagudem districts.
The state government has to pay `350 crore to the central forest department as compensation.
It must also acquire and hand over the same extent of land to the forest department, and the forest department is supposed to plant trees on that land.