Damage due to cyclone Chandrababu Naidu flays govt for failure to take precautionary measures

Guntur : TDP national president and former Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday said that the farmers in the State have suffered heavily due to human error coupled with natural disaster.

After visiting the damaged crop in the Michaung cyclone affected areas like Revendrapadu and Nandivelugu in the combined Guntur district, Naidu regretted that majority of the farmers in the State did not cultivate any crops due to severe drought condition while those who raised crops suffered damage due to Cyclone Michaung.

Majority of those whose crops got damaged due to the cyclone were tenant farmers who have spent nearly Rs 40,000 per acre including Rs 20,000 as lease, he said.

Natural disasters are quite common but in the damage caused by the Michaung cyclone there is human blunder too, Naidu felt and said that despite enough warning on the cyclone the State government has not taken any preventive measures to check the damage.

“Not even gunny bags were supplied to the farmers and not a single rupee was spent in the past four years on drainage repairs due to which the standing crops got damaged with the heavy flow of drain water into the fields,” Naidu said.

The former Chief Minister expressed concern that though the entire farming community was suffering a lot due to the damage caused by the cyclone, there is no movement of the government machinery till now.

He regretted that not a single farmer received the Fasal Bheema as insurance coverage. The facility should have been finalised by July 15 itsel, he pointed out.

Much before the Opposition parties’ leaders, the Chief Minister should visit the farmers first to personally know their problems, Naidu said and stated that learning about his Friday’s visit to the cyclone-affected areas, the Chief Minister for namesake went on a tour.

Stating that the input subsidy per acre was increased to Rs 20,000 from Rs 10,000 during the TDP regime in 2014, Naidu recalled and asked what Jagan has done for the farmers in the last five years. Did he pay the input subsidy to the farmers, Naidu asked.

The TDP chief said he was put in jail by foisting a false case. “I have been sent to jail by foisting a false case though I have not committed any kind of mistake in my 45 years of political life. I really suffered a lot mentally for no fault of mine,” the TDP chief said. Power should not get into one’s mind, he said and advised Jagan to think about what will be his future in the next three months.

What happened to those who acted with highhandedness in Telangana and similar situation will get repeated in the State, Naidu said. Those who are raising their voice on the failures of the Government are being harassed by foisting fasle cases, he regretted.

Stating that Andhra Pradesh stood on top in the debts and second in the suicides by tenant farmers, he demanded that suitable compensation should be paid to the farmers who suffered crop loss due to the cyclone. Assuring the farming community that he will stand by them, Naidu asked the farmers to fight for justice. “If the State government does not respond now, wait for three months I will personally take that responsibility to get the compensation to you,” Naidu said.