The farmers from the drought hit Marathwada region who are desperately awaiting help from the state government, are less likely to get respite anytime sooner, as the survey reports of the drought situation and loss of crops, have now got trapped in red-tapism.

In an attempt to give relief to the farmers in the drought hit areas of the state, the government has recently announced package of Rs 7000 crores for dealing with the drought in the state. Out of this package, an amount of Rs 3925 crores have been meant for compensating the crop loss spread across 92 lakh hectares in the state.

But due to the red-tapism, around 43 lakh farmers from Marathwada region alone are all set to take a direct hit. The state government has recently shot a letter to the divisional authorities asking them to further direct the district collectors in their division to review the drought and crop loss reports that were sent earlier and resend a detailed report of each individual farmer.

These directives by the government have already started giving a tough time to the revenue and the agriculture department officials and their field staff, who are nowadays found to be busy in gathering the data in accordance to the requirements sent by the state government.

A senior official said that earlier we had sent the total number of villages with less than 50 per cent paisewari, number of farmers holding less than five acres and those holding over five acres of land and those eligible for the compensation from the government.

But as per the latest norms, the revenue and the agri departments have to jointly send the data of each individual farmer, the exact size of land he owns, the crop he had sown, if the farmer is dependent on monsoon for taking crops, the farmers taking crops round the year, details of the orchards, those farmers taking crops in dry areas and so on.

A total of 8,004 of the 8,536 villages of eight districts in Marathwada have registered less than 50% 'paisewari, reports recently released by the state government has recently revealed.

The other divisions that follow Marathwada are Nashik (1,782 villages), Pune (three) and Nagpur (2,029 villages). All the 7,241 villages in Amravati division have reported less than 50% paisewari.

Source - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/