Residents of Kakhetia allotted 54,3 million dollars as compensation for damage from hail

A compensation of 95 million lari (54,3 million dollars) will be paid to the farmers in Kakhetia whose farms were destroyed by hail on July, 19, 2012. This decision was taken on January, 18, at a session of the Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure of Georgia.

“Transfer of the funds will start on January, 21. The sums will be defined individually. Some people will get several hundred lari, others several thousand”, First Deputy Minister of Regional Development Tengiz Shergelashvili said to the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent.

Before the parliamentary election held on October, 2, 2012, the previous Government had time to pay 30 million lari (17,14 million dollars).

The farmers perceived the news of the start of payments with cautious optimism. “Everything depends on the sums of compensation they will pay. If for instance, they pay two or three thousand it will be enough to restore a vineyard in an area of one hectare. But the harvest in such an area can be taken in two years only. Where will one get money to live on all this period?”, resident of the settlement of Vazisubani David Giashvili asks.

“Already today we need to root out old vines to replace them with new shoots. Then we will have a chance to get the harvest already in 2015 but that will make 30 to 40 per cent of what we had during the past years”, farmer Vano Iashvili said.