Two cyclones in one week: Andhra's farmers should not have to prove the same loss twice

Some time between 11:30 tonight and 4 am on Tuesday, Cyclone Murasu is expected to cross the Andhra Pradesh coast near Ongole as a severe cyclonic storm, with winds of up to 120 km/h and a surge of up to one and a half metres over the tide. Red warnings cover Nellore, Prakasam, Bapatla, Guntur and Krishna.

It arrives six days after Cyclone Arnab came ashore on the same coast on 28 October. Arnab killed at least seven people in Andhra Pradesh and brought down at least 15,000 electricity poles. Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu put the preliminary loss at ₹4,600 crore and said it could rise.

What the warnings got right

There is something to acknowledge first. For a very severe cyclonic storm, Arnab’s toll was low, and that was not luck. The India Meteorological Department tracked it for days, boats were called back, and Odisha and Andhra Pradesh both set zero casualties as the target. The same machinery is moving again: six NDRF and seven SDRF teams are in place in Andhra Pradesh, fishermen have been told to stay ashore until Wednesday afternoon, and Odisha is moving people out of about 150 landslide-prone places in Gajapati.

That work should not slacken tonight because people are tired. The IMD has asked families in thatched and kutcha homes along the coast to move to safety. Families still clearing up after Arnab will need persuading to leave home again, and the persuading has to happen in daylight.

The harder part is the money

Lives are counted in a night. Livelihoods take months. After Arnab, the state’s first count put crop damage at about 2.24 lakh hectares across 14 districts, affecting nearly 3.45 lakh farmers. A day later, Agriculture Minister K Atchannaidu’s review put the area submerged or damaged at about 3.5 lakh hectares. In West Godavari, about 82 per cent of the paddy was under water; in Konaseema, 75 per cent.

Those surveys are not finished, and now a second storm is headed for some of the same land. Krishna district alone lost more than 22,000 hectares to Arnab and is under a red warning again. The risk is plain: a farmer whose paddy was flattened last week may find his field flooded again before an official has written down the first loss, and then be told he cannot claim for both, or must wait for two separate counts.

The fair objection

Governments have reasons to be careful. Disaster money is limited, the Centre’s teams check state claims closely, and overlapping storms do make it harder to say which loss came from which. Paying quickly risks paying wrongly.

But the answer to a hard count is not a slow one.

What should happen next

First, Andhra Pradesh should treat Arnab and Murasu as one disaster for crop and house compensation. A field damaged in either storm should be counted once, on one claim, with whatever photographs and village records already exist from last week accepted as proof.

Second, the inter-ministerial team that Union Home Minister Amit Shah promised after Arnab should assess both storms together, and the Centre should release an advance against the state’s preliminary figure once its team has confirmed it, to be settled when the final count is done.

Third, payments should reach the person who actually farmed the land, including those who lease it, and fishing families kept off the sea for days on end should get support for the lost catch.

Fourth, power crews should be held in the districts where Murasu is due to land, so that repairs start the morning after, not days later.

The coast has learnt how to keep people alive through a cyclone. It now has to learn how to help them get back on their feet when the storms come one after the other.

The reporting behind this view

• 7people killed in Andhra Pradesh by Cyclone Arnab, which made landfall on 28 October
• ₹4,600 crorepreliminary loss from Arnab in Andhra Pradesh, a figure the chief minister said could rise
• 1 to 1.5 mstorm surge forecast on the south Andhra coast as Murasu crosses near Ongole