It seems the Haryana government's compensation for failed crops is too absurd to believe, yet true. Farmers have reported getting a few rupees as compensation for the failed crop of a season.
The government appears to provide its own reasoning, but regardless of how the tiny numbers came to be, it is abundantly clear that they cannot realistically compensate for the loss and become a cruel taunt instead of support.
It is pathetic that an absurdly inadequate provision gets followed so blindly that all through the process no one realizes the absurdity of it till the point the cheque actually reaches the farmer who suffered the loss like a slap.
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Haryana chief minister's political advisor Prof Virender had claimed on Friday that it had given 33 paisa extra to a farmer, Tekchand, who got a cheque of Rs 3 as compensation for not being able to cultivate his land after waterlogging in the fields. "Tekchand has a share of 1/1260 in (in one acre). His compensation works out to be Rs 2.77, but he has been given a cheque for Rs 3," Virender had claimed.
Tekchand could not explain the technicalities. But his brother, Mahesh, 33, who also got a cheque of Rs 3 for the same piece of land, alleged that the government did not compensate them adequately. "Twelve share-holders of around one acre land (six kanals) got around Rs 60 as compensation, in the range of cheques of Rs 3 to 4," he explained. "I will meet the revenue official tomorrow to ask on what basis they had calculated such a less amount as compensation for our land," the farmer added.
Tekchand's cousin, Sheel Kumar said due to waterlogging, following heavy rains, his wheat crop in two acres got damaged in 2011. "Now the government has given a cheque of just Rs 250 to me as compensation," he said. Explaining the logic behind giving a cheque of Rs 2 to a farmer Satnarayan, CM's political adviser had stated, "The share of Satnarayan, a resident of village Godhri (Jhajjar), is 1 out of 1,680 shares in an acre of land and the compensation at the rate of Rs 3,500 per acre was worked out to be Rs 2.08 for him."
There seems to be some massive records mismatch here. 1680 shares in an acre of land? An acre is 43,560 square feet. That would be almost 26 square feet of land per head. For an idea, that would be slightly bigger than a door. The government appears to believe that people owned land like this? Also, how are people under the belief that they were 12 share-holders to an acre of land? Where are the remaining 1662 people the government seems to see and how much did they get paid?
Further investigation ought to happen.
