Shirish Khare

large_01-Rajsamund-district-farmer-SK-Chhattisgarh_Farmers_are_on_the_Brink.jpg

medium_01-Rajsamund-district-farmer-SK-Chhattisgarh_Farmers_are_on_the_Brink.jpg

small_01-Rajsamund-district-farmer-SK-Chhattisgarh_Farmers_are_on_the_Brink.jpg

thumbnail_01-Rajsamund-district-farmer-SK-Chhattisgarh_Farmers_are_on_the_Brink.jpg

01-Rajsamund-district-farmer-SK-Chhattisgarh_Farmers_are_on_the_Brink.jpg

Jagdish Soni and his three sons used to cultivate paddy on
around 15 acres. This was their source of income. But then, hit by drought,
they were unable to cultivate a single grain of rice. The family racked up a
debt of Rs. 1 lakh.
 
 Then came a ray of hope – the state government announced
compensation for drought-hit farmers in January 2016. However, Soni&#39;s name did
not figure on the list.
 
 &quot;The
 
 patwari
 
 [keeper of village records] did not bother to inspect the fields. He
distributed relief money to the wrong people. I would shoot him, if given a
chance. We are not going to survive anyway,&quot; the 80-year-old farmer
laments.

02-Jagdish-Soni-durg-old-farmer-SK-Chhattisgarh_Farmers_are_on_the_Brink.jpg

Soni is just one among many farmers in Achoti village who feel betrayed by government apathy. Situated barely 25 kilometres from Chhattisgarh&#39;s capital, Raipur, Achoti in Durg district is home to around 200 families. Barely half of these have been deemed as drought-affected by the state government. &quot;Our village depends on the Tandula canal for irrigation. But water was not released into the canal this year. As a result, around 75 per cent of the crop was ruined in Achoti and adjoining villages like Nardha, Chetva, Murmunda, Otebandh, Godi and Malpuri, among others,&quot; complains Achoti sarpanch Hem Sahu.However, Durg district collector, R. Sangeeta, disagrees. &quot;We might have missed a few names. But the procedure adopted for the survey was totally correct,&quot; she insists.The collector’s claims notwithstanding, the fixing and distribution of compensation has broken the back of Chhattisgarh&#39;s farmers. The relief money is a pittance, and large-scale irregularities in the distribution process have added insult to injury. Complaints against bungling officials are piling up by the day.

03-JANJGIR-CHANPA-2-SK-Chhattisgarh_Farmers_are_on_the_Brink.jpg

The relief criteria seem flawed and the process of applying them even more so. Only families with joint holdings of under 25 acres and who have suffered crop damage of 70 per cent or more can claim compensation. So families below that limit who have suffered 20-30 per cent crop damage, have been excluded. Indeed, even those with less than five acres complain of having been left out. Meanwhile those included in the list have been stymied by payment delays. In this state, even farms running to 20 acres can often be quite poor, as these are joint holdings of large families with several members. According to the state government, Chhattisgarh has 37.46 lakh farmers, with over 80 per cent of them small cultivators. And nearly 70 per cent of the state’s 46.85 lakh hectares of agricultural land is unirrigated. In the 30 per cent that is irrigated, most have been left out on the excuse they are better off. But the groundwater crisis and breakdown of electric power means they have been hurt badly too.The exclusion of huge numbers from the relief operations have resulted in distress that has spurred migration in many areas. Farmers feel they have little chance of being able to make up for their losses in the near future.&quot;Every farmer in our village is neck-deep in debt. Most have no seeds for the next season. They will have to leave their fields empty next year,&quot; says Rikhiram Sahu, an Achoti resident.

04-Rikhiram-Sahu-10-by-shirish-khareCrop-SK-Chhattisgarh_Farmers_are_on_th.jpg

A visit to the hinterland of Rajnandgaon, Mahasamund, Janjgir-Champa and Durg districts is enough to expose the truth behind government claims. The farmers in these regions have only worries, sorrow, dissatisfaction and anguish to share. The Raman Singh-led state government had sought assistance of Rs. 6,000 crores from the Centre to deal with the crisis. The Narendra Modi government issued a relief package of Rs. 1,200 crores. A sum of Rs. 800 crores was earmarked for distribution to drought-hit farmers.According to the state’s Department of Revenue and Disaster Management, the distribution of compensation money has already been completed. The state has decided that no further aid is required.

05-Mahasamund--badhali-dinesh-yadav-ka-parivar-SK-Chhattisgarh_Farmers_are.jpg

Department secretary K.R. Pisda says the decision has been taken as no district has demanded more money. This is despite the fact that only Rs. 380 crores have been disbursed so far. And experts argue this amount is not sufficient to compensate all the farmers. In many areas, farmers have been forced to leave their standing crops as cattle feed, knowing that what’s there cannot meet their own needs. However, such farmers do not qualify for compensation within the government’s parameters.The simmering discontent is showing on the streets. There have been protests against the arbitrary distribution of compensation money in several districts.&quot;Farmers have received less than a third of the Centre’s 1,200-crore relief package. The state government has excluded the most needy farmers from compensation by incorporating several unjustified preconditions in determining who the drought-affected are. This means it wants to keep the other Rs. 820 crores to itself,&quot; alleges farmer leader Rajkumar Gupta.

06-Raajnandgaon-SK-Chhattisgarh_Farmers_are_on_the_Brink.jpg

The government’s figures on drought-affected farmers are also contradicted by the fact that around 10 lakh farmers have not sold paddy this season. Government apathy has left these farmers in a serious crisis of livelihood. Many of them have no option but to look for greener pastures elsewhere.Hundreds of families from Bagbahra, Pithora, Basna, Jhalap, Saraipali and Bhanwarpur regions of Mahasamund district have left their villages. This trend has also been observed in the Baloda area of the Janjgir-Champa region where MNREGA labourers have not received their wages for three months.

07-Jangir-Chanpa3--Mahasamnud-basti-para-sannataSK-Chhattisgarh-Farmers-ar.jpg

There is speculation that 30-40 per cent of the region&#39;s families have left their homes in recent weeks. But Pisda denies such reports. &quot;We see migration at a negligible scale every year. However, 13 lakh people have demanded work under MNREGA this year. Further, several projects are pending under drought-relief measures. We are giving priority to drinking water and irrigation initiatives,&quot; he explains.

08-JANJGIR-CHANPA-district-farmer-womenSK-Chhattisgarh_Farmers_are_on_the_.jpg

Pisda’s claims notwithstanding, the government&#39;s efforts to help the farmers remain largely on paper. &quot;The administration has distributed enough compensation to every deserving farmer, as per government policy. We have received complaints from some districts. The district collectors have been instructed to address these concerns,&quot; he says.But, what if the problem lies in the compensation policy itself?The damage cannot be ascertained from empty fields, as the crop has already been harvested. Officials have estimated the loss through rainfall data and the sale of the paddy crop.According to state agriculture minister Brijmohan Aggarwal, &quot;The task of distributing compensation money was assigned to the officials. The complaints, to some extent, are natural. But it is wrong to say that there is widespread anger among the farmers.&quot;The Aam Aadmi Party&#39;s state convenor and agriculture expert Sanket Thakur contests this claim.&quot;The government is only pretending to help the farmers. It has passed the buck to the bureaucracy. The relief money is insufficient in the first place, and there are large-scale irregularities in the distribution,&quot; he alleges.&quot;Many more farmers would be forced to commit suicide if the situation does not improve. They cannot be left at the mercy of MNREGA alone,&quot; he says.The original version of this story was published in the Raipur edition of the Rajasthan Patrika on February 29, 2016.Translated from Hindi by Deepak Sharma

Chhattisgarh farmers are on the brink

விளிம்பு நிலையில் சத்தீஸ்கர் விவசாயிகள்

ಸಂಕಷ್ಟದಲ್ಲಿ ಛತ್ತೀಸಗಡದ ರೈತರು

خشک سالی سے متاثر چھتیس گڑھ کے کسان

छत्तीसगढ़ मं सूखा के मार, किसान कोंटा मं

କଠୋର ସ୍ଥିତିରେ ଛତିଶଗଡ଼ ଚାଷୀ

छत्तीसगढ़ के सूखा प्रभावित किसान हाशिए पर

Achoti

At present, we can only accept donations in Indian rupees by Indian citizens. All donations made to the CounterMedia Trust are eligible for exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Here is a copy of our exemption certificate.


India is bigger than New Delhi. And people need to know more about the rest of this vast nation.


Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

Donate FAQs


ہمارے بارے میں جانیں

پاری میں آپ کا خیرمقدم ہے

گے۔ اگر آپ کو ہمارا کام پسند ہے، تو آپ ہمارے رضاکار بن کر ہمارا تعاون کر سکتے ہیں یا ہماری مالی مدد کر سکتے ہیں، تاکہ ہم اپنا کام جاری رکھ سکیں۔

Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

Chhattisgarh farmers are on the brink

Drought-hit cultivators in the state have mostly been excluded from the government's compensation lists

Related stories

A rain-scented walk in Sivagangai

Living on ravaged land

Biswas and the bamboos on his bike

Recycling energy, Godda style

Bhadels of Goa

Pookadai: still throbbing with morning life

Koli Kadlas

Malnourishment high among children of migrants: study

Wheels of the rural Indian West

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

Vedla – earrings of the Maher community

Dreaming of water, drowning in debt

Kali: the dancer and his dreams

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's

In Yavatmal, life goes on

Suicides are about the living, not the dead

Death of a carpenter

Hoisa Shigmo!

Women farmers: weaving a life in Anantapur

Defiant in Dhinkia

Spice and all that's nice

Kerala's Green Army

The ‘jugaad’ not-a-mobile

Health as someone else's wealth

Calibrating in a Kudumbashree assembly unit