After the disaster comes the politics. As farmers in several states face their third straight crop failure, the National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre is busily making statements about relief and drought assistance. Seizing on the opportunity, the Congress too has announced that party vice president Rahul Gandhi will visit starving farmers in Uttar Pradesh’s Bundelkhand later this month. On the ground, however, farmers are awaiting something more concrete.
Following inadequate rains, 10 Indian states have declared partial or complete drought. The affected area covers over 40% of the landmass or, put another way, more than a third of the total 676 districts.
Over the last fortnight, the Union government has pledged relief to seven of these 10 states for their kharif crop (monsoon crop) loss. In late December, it approved a grant of Rs 3,050 crore to Maharashtra, eliciting words of profuse gratitude from Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for “the biggest ever relief given by the central government to Maharashtra”. A few days later, on January 6, when the Centre announced a grant of Rs 1,304 crore for Uttar Pradesh, it drew howls of criticism from senior state officials, who described it as insufficient.
The reactions were a replay of early 2015 when the rabi crop (winter crop) in 15 states was destroyed by untimely rain and hail and the affected states called the central relief as arbitrary and inadequate.
The cyclical discontent raises the obvious question: what decides the amount of relief that a state gets, and to what extent is it the Centre’s discretion? Does the crop loss relief amount to adequate compensation?
State and central fund
Disaster relief is primarily the responsibility of state governments. But money for that relief comes from two sources, the National Disaster Relief Fund and the State Disaster Relief Fund. The first of these is supported entirely by the Centre, while the second, the State Disaster Relief Fund, is made up of 75% contributions from the Centre and 25% from the state (special category states, such as those in the North East, get funds from the Centre in 90:10 ratio).
The actual amount in the State Disaster Relief Fund varies from state to state. The Finance Commission, which is set up every five years, recommends the annual size of each state’s fund. It also suggests the mechanisms by which the Centre would assist states in funding expenses on relief.
In the instance of a natural disaster, states are expected to use their own funds. But if the disaster has a high impact, it is normal practice for states to ask the Centre for additional financial and logistical support from the National Disaster Relief Fund. A total of Rs 33,580.9 crore had been provided for the National Disaster Relief Fund by the 13th Finance Commission (2010-2015). Its successor, the latest 14th Finance Commission, nearly doubled the amount to Rs 61,219 crore.
Measuring losses
When a drought hits, states adopt different methods to assess its severity and the amount of relief. Even the administrative unit for drought declaration varies – some states use blocks, some divisions and some districts. After the state’s revenue department submits a report to the Union ministry of agriculture, the ministry sends a team which verify the state’s assessment measuring the relief as per the central norms. Once this is complete, the ministry approves a grant to the state from the National Disaster Relief Fund with the approval of a high-level committee of finance ministry officials, and of the National Disaster Management Authority under the Home Ministry.
Finally, relief is disbursed to farmers in the form of cheques, with the amount based on the calculation of the percentage of crop damaged. Here too, states use different methods to assess a farmer’s losses.
A report published last November by the Centre for Science and Environment notes that in Uttar Pradesh, the patwari (a local revenue official) details the losses in a nyaya panchayat (comprising of six to seven panchayats) based on “eye estimation”, or by casting a glance at the fields. The CSE team found that although a technical officer from the agriculture department was supposed to accompany the patwari for the assessment, this did not happen in practice. The patwari submitted a report on the estimated losses to the tehsildar based on the girdawri, the land records of cultivated crops, and the field reports were then aggregated at the district and then state level, the CSE team says.
Several other states such as Rajasthan follow a similar method of eye estimation by the local patwari and other officials. Although Rajasthan, unlike Uttar Pradesh, purports to consider every farmer’s account to calculate losses, it is physically impossible for the patwari to visit each farmer’s fields in the panchayat in the given timeframe.
In Maharashtra, officials say they follow a two-step process, the first being eye estimation and the second crop-cutting experiments.
“In early kharif season, the paisewari village committee – which comprises of the patwari, agriculture assistant, the police paatil and the sarpanch – make an eye assessment, then a month later they make a second visit to see if there are improvements or further losses,” said a revenue official in Osmanabad district in Marathwada, where all 737 villages have recorded more than 50% crop loss. “Later, a yield experiment of the actual yield of every crop is done by the agriculture department, to assess whether the produce is over or below 50% and a report is prepared for every village in the district.”
It is this lack of standardisation – whether in the administrative unit for declaration of drought or in the method of assessing crop yield – that creates space for the Centre and states to blame each other for poor relief.
“Uttar Pradesh government had asked for Rs 4,900 crore last year, and it got only Rs 490 crore, a tenth,” said Sudhir Panwar, a member of the Uttar Pradesh Planning Board. “This time, it was slightly better as the state government had requested Rs 2,057 crore and the Centre granted Rs 1,304 crore. But Rs 1,427 crore was our estimate of just the input subsidy to farmers as immediate cash relief. For drought-proofing measures, the allocation is inadequate.”
Relief or compensation?
Most state governments say that assistance from the National Disaster Relief Fund doesn’t provide relief.
On April 8, 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi increased the amount of compensation to farmers who have suffered crop loss due to natural disasters and relaxed the norms for claiming relief. Farmers who suffer up to 33% of crop damage have been made eligible for relief – the earlier level was a loss of 50%. Meanwhile, compensation for areas with assured irrigation has been raised from Rs 9,000 to Rs 13,500 per hectare, subject to a cap of two hectares per farmer, an increase of 50%.
But is this increase enough? Revenue and agriculture officials say no, given the rate at which the cost of farm inputs has increased.
“Though the government has increased the rates, on the ground… this translates into an increase of compensation from Rs 2,200 per bigha – which was the rate from 1982 till 2015 – to Rs 3,300 per bigha now, with an upper limit of Rs 27,000,” said a revenue official in Rajasthan. “Then as now, this amount does not cover the costs of manure or seeds in most instances, or the labour expenses.”
Moreover, while the Central government claimed credit for raising drought relief by 1.5 times or 50%, accounting for inflation shows that Rs 2,200 in 1982 prices would be equivalent to Rs 20,209 now, an increase of 9.2 times or 820%. This is why the sporadic cheques from the government provide little relief to most farmers. They do, however, give politicians an opportunity to win brownie points. Perhaps, the fierce politics around drought announcements is the reason why the Indian Meteorological Department has decided not to use the term "drought" to describe large deficit in annual rainfall.
From now on, India will simply have "deficient year" and "large deficient year".
