By Shri SUPARNO SATPATHY (Chairman SNSMT)
Courtesy; Orissabarta.com
Odisha government’s ‘special package’ for rain affected farmers is nothing but a mere routine and mandatory minimum relief compensation package. I strongly feel that it makes mockery of the farmers on their face as it grossly misleads the quantitative and qualitative cover.
Advertisement, prominently gracing all major newspapers and other mass medias of Odisha, blaring 'Hon’ble Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s declaration of special relief package to farmers affected by low-pressure induced December 2010 rain' has generated more condemnation than kudos. The opposition is expectedly sniffing ‘inefficiencies’. The treasury bench, too, find it awfully awkward to defend a declaration which their government woefully terms as a ‘special package’. While the who’s who debate it at their levels, nature ravaged farmers are doomed to a sense of big letdown. “As you can see, I have lost the whole crop. But now I get to know that the package is not for me,” are the words of Girdhar Pradhan of Chendipada at Angul district while he was trying his hands on a salvaging operation fully knowing that the cost of the salvage operation will be more than the value of the salvaged crop. While Giridhar, a big farmer, is peeved because he is entitled to a maximum compensation of only 2,000 rupees; Dinu , a small farmer of Balangir district, is dumbfounded as the so called package is barely a fraction of what he had spent on his now ruined crop. “I have been offered a 1,200 rupees compensation for my lost crop on my one and half acre holding,” said Dinu and he added “I had spent 20,000 rupees on this crop which is completely ruined.”
The Rs 900 Crore package which the government of Odisha so proudly announced and so aggressively advertised only rubs salt on to the farmer’s rotting wounds. They have strong reasons to presume so too. While announcing the package, Naveen Pattnaik, the Chief Minister of Odisha, did mention on the floor of the assembly that prima-facie estimation of more than 50 percent of crop loss has been reported from ‘around 12 lakh hectares under paddy and non-paddy crops’. Now let me assume that all affected lands are irrigated land, which are entitled to highest compensation, then the total compensation that the farmers get will be Rs 480 Crore rupees – barely a half of the so called 900 Crore package. But hold on… there is a catch. Neither is all the lands irrigated, nor will all affected lands be provided compensation. Orissa Agricultural Statistics for year 2009-10 claims that irrigation potential has been created in 47.5 percent of the state’s total cultivable area. But a huge chasm between irrigation potential created and utilized undermines all claims. Even the state department of water resources puts irrigation utilization at 81 percent of the potential created. That means about 20 percent of land presently is being considered as irrigated. Thus effective area under any sort of irrigation is only 38.5 percent of the total cultivable area. But, there are not many takers for this figure either and they reject this claim as being highly optimistic. Ok, for the sake of calculation let me assume that 38 percent of the 12 lakh hectares of land supposedly identified as rain affected are irrigated land. Thus the maximum possible total compensation - assuming an unrealistic supposition that all land holders are eligible for compensation for all of their holdings - for irrigated lands will be Rs 182.4 Crore only
(4,56,000 hectares getting compensation @ Rs 4,000 per hectare) and the maximum total compensation for non-irrigated lands will be Rs 148.8 Crores only (7,44,000 hectares getting compensation @ Rs 2,000 per hectare). Thus even in the best possible scenario, where all affected lands become eligible for compensation irrespective of their land holding pattern, still require the government to spend only Rs 331.2 Crores on compensation, not Rs 900 Crores.
The best possible scenario is not at all a reality, as only a fraction of land identified as rain affected are likely to be eligible for compensation. The reason is the land holding pattern and the ceiling condition laid out in the so called ‘special package’. Farmers who are not ‘marginal’ or ‘small’ will be entitled to a maximum compensation for one hectare only. Thus a farmer having lost more than 50 percent of crops in 10 acres of land will still get a maximum compensation of Rs 2,000 for non-irrigated land and Rs 4,000 for irrigated land.
Land distribution aspect has significant bearing on compensation coverage and ex-gratia amount. As per the 2001 population census there are 42,34,000 farming households in Odisha. Though 83 percent of them are small and marginal farming households, they own only about 40 percent of the total land. In other words, about 13 percent of big and medium farmers own about 60 percent of the lands. Thus a ceiling of compensation for a maximum of one hectare land for big and small farmers will eliminate scope of compensation to as high as about 40 percent of affected lands which belong to medium and big farmers. This is not the end of the gaffe. The recent December rain mostly caused losses in low lands where farmers normally go for late duration crops. The pattern is such that ownership of such low lands mostly lies with the big and medium farmers. This kind of pattern is more prominent in western and southern parts of Odisha. Thus, by virtue of this, a majority of the estimated 12 lakh hectares of land affected by December rainfall belong to big and medium farmers and thereby further erode coverage of the declared compensation package.
The very basic claim of the ‘Rs 900 Crore special package’ is hollow, a complete lie and misleading. The compensation ‘special package’ itself is atrociously humiliating for the farmers of Odisha. The ‘package’ is nothing but a mere declaration of ‘Calamity Relief Fund (CRF)’ norms. Section 3(e)(i) of the CRF norms. Clearly mentions “Assistance to small and marginal farmers for agricultural crops, horticulture crops and annual plantation crops @ Rs 2,000 per hectare in rainfed areas, Rs 4,000 per hectare under assured irrigation area. (a) No input subsidy will be payable for agricultural land remaining unsown or fallow. (b)Assistance payable to any small farmer with tiny holding may not be less than Rs 250” where more than 50 percent of crop losses have been reported. Cultivation of paddy has become hugely capital intensive. The spend is at least Rs 12,000 per acre (Rs 30,000 for one hectare) for paddy. Then what is the value of a mere Rs 800 compensation?
Even the banks and cooperative societies provide crop loan @ Rs 9,000 per acre for rainfed paddy agriculture. Considering the same this compensation at best covers less than nine percent of the loan amount. Farmers naturally feel brutalized. The government wants the farmers to go for high-yielding and high-cost crop practices to feed a growing population. But it does very little to cushion their losses.
As magnitude of losses keep on increasing owing to a variety of vagaries and the government continues to be more and more wanting, farmer’s quandaries continues to mount. In the long term, total cumulative output from a high-cost method invariably equals that of a traditional and low cost method. Increasing natural disasters, pest attacks and untimely supply or shortages of inputs are growingly affecting high-cost crops more than the traditional crop. And the burden of shouldering such losses squarely falls on the helpless farmers.
Farmers of Odisha are peeved at the way their government is dealing with them. While other state governments have acted differently, Odisha government’s indifference has struck them badly. The state government is propagating a minimum and routine ex-gratia aid as ‘Chief Minister’s special package’. Odisha government has declared nothing more than what has been stipulated in the CRF norms, with a small change i.e, raising the minimum compensation from Rs 250 to Rs 1,000. Losses and damages in Tamilnadu are not very different from Odisha, yet the Tamilnadu government has already declared a uniform compensation of Rs 10,000 for every damaged hectare.
Farmers having crop loss of more than 50 percent rue their fate, farmers having lesser crop loss complain that their losses are not been taken into account at all. At some places Paddy has become discolored and no one is willing to buy them. The said package does even make any consideration for this kind of a situation. As more mysteries of the said ' CM's Special package' keep unfolding, our bewilderment grows larger. How a democratically elected government can brag and claim this routine relief measure to be 'special package’ keeps baffling me. As farmer movements start taking shape and politicians awaken to take some mileage, indications clearly emanating from the grassroots, growingly reveal that our Odisha farmers are not that aloof , not ignorant anymore and can not be fooled any more by the ruling side.
Smt. Nandini Satpathy Memorial Trust
The Chairman of an organisation (SNSMT), no less, resorting to such plagiarism indicates the poor standards by which they operate, I suppose! Through this comment, I'd like to request Shri Suparno Satpathy to withdraw his article from Orissabarta, and offer an unconditional apology to the original author of this article, failing which he should be prepared to face the dire consequences that are reserved for such intellectual crimes.
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