President of the Hill Farmers Union, Commander Shangpliang, today stated that he is hopeful that this time the state government “sensibly” compensates thousands of farmers whose produce has been ruined by the heavy rains and flooding over the past few days.
Informing Highland Post that there are uncountable farmers whose produce has been completely crushed by extreme rainfall and strong winds in the last few days in various parts of the state, he said, “The union has started the process of submitting detail forms and data to the district agriculture and horticulture officers who will, in turn, submit the forms to the DC offices and the government so that the assistance to the farmers is provided at the earliest.”
In the past, however, government assistance has been “insulting”. In some cases, the compensation is little more than a token Rs 75 to Rs 500 for a one acre paddy field.
“This kind of assistance is like an insult to the farmers in distress that does not even match their taxi fares to go to the block offices and we hope that this time the government does not insult the farmers. We will also meet the minister in charge of disaster management, Kyrmen Shylla, and see that the government compensates the victims sensibly,” Shangpliang said, adding that even if the government cannot compensate affected farmers 100 percent, they should at least try and cover 80 percent of the damages.
Meanwhile, Shangpliang also stressed on the need for a minimum support price for the 2 lakh farmers in the state.
