The agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Friday announced immediate financial assistance of Rs. 3,448 crore from the state disaster response fund (SDRF) to Andhra Pradesh and Telangana for mitigating the impact of floods in the states.
“Work is being done to provide immediate assistance from SDRF which is already with States which also includes the Centre’s share,” Chouhan said after visiting the floods-affected areas of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
After providing immediate financial assistance, the government will think about making available fertilisers and seeds to farmers for the next crop, Chouhan said.
Chouhan visited flood-affected Khamman district of Telangana on Friday for assessing the damages. Chouhan said that steps will be taken to ensure that farmers impacted get benefit of crop insurance and help them in taking up the next crop.
“The entire crops of the farmers – banana, turmeric and vegetables have been destroyed,” he said according to an official statement. He said “we will ask the banks not to recover loans from farmers in times of crisis,”.
While overall monsoon across the country till Friday has been 7.8% above the benchmark – long period average (LPA) or in the above normal range, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have received 42% and 39% rainfall above the LPA respectively.
On Thursday, Chouhan stated that the initial estimate indicated that floods in Vijayawada district of Andhra Pradesh had impacted 0.18 million hectare of agricultural land and 0.2 million farmers. The home ministry has sent a national disaster response force (NDRF) team to assess the damage in the state.
Meanwhile a home ministry official said that the Centre has been extending all the requisite and timely assistance to Andhra Pradesh and Telangana for flood relief and rescue efforts and an inter-ministerial central team will soon visit the affected areas in both the states.
The finance ministry has directed public sector insurance companies to provide full support to people affected by the floods in the two states.
Meanwhile, Sonal Badhan, Economist, Bank of Baroda stated as sowing of kharif crops including paddy, pulses, oilseeds, cotton and sugarcane is almost complete, “harvesting of crops will be critical. Excess or large excess of rainfall or deficient rainfall can be damaging for sown crops,”.
At 108.7 million hectare (MH) close to normal sown area of 109.58 MH in the season, the combined sown area of key crops – paddy, pulses, oilseeds, coarse cereals, cotton and sugarcane — was up 1.9% on year, according to latest data by the agriculture ministry earlier this week.
Meanwhile according to agriculture ministry statement, the outlook for tur and moong production ‘is promising for the upcoming season,”.