| Babu Raj: 3months on, officials still calculate losses of hailstorm affected farmers | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Feb 1: As the ‘arrogant’ Babus are not accountable and answerable to anybody due to present bureaucratic rule in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, marginalized and neglected sections of the society are bearing brunt of the inept administration.
Although all sections of the society are facing hardship due to lack of transparency and accountability in the present system of governance, hailstorm-affected farmers of Jammu province are glaring examples of the Babus’ casual approach. With much publicity and media hype, it was announced in the month of October 2021 that compensation will be given to hailstorm-affected farmers of the plains of Jammu province. Fed-up with the repeated assurances of the authorities, farmers of R S Pura on Monday stated a protest at R S Pura and submitted a memorandum to the authorities demanding compensation for the hailstorm-affected families of this belt.
Three months have been passed after several thousand hectares of crops were destroyed in Jammu province due to heavy downpours and hailstorms in October. Within days after rains and hailstorms, the J&K administration issued huge advertisements in different media to give a fake impression that the process of giving compensation to affected farmers was going on far-footing.
In November officers/officials of the concerned departments have almost completed the survey of the losses but those at the helm of the affairs have no time to release compensation for the poor farmers.
Instead of addressing grievances of the farmers at the village level, J&K authorities are busy giving the misleading message at the national level that farmers are very happy with the policies of the present regime. Untimely rains and hailstorms had destroyed crops, other agricultural produce standing in fields on several thousand hectares.
In the plains of Jammu, paddy crops, particularly the Basmati varieties standing in thousands of hectares and vegetables got destroyed due to heavy rains and unprecedented hailstorms in R S Pura, Bishnah, Samba, Ramgarh, Marh, Kathua, and other areas of plains of Jammu. |
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