In response to the protests being held by the hail-affected community farms in Armavir, Tigran Sargsyan, the Prime Minister of Armenia, stated in May 16 Government meeting that they would support socially insecure families. He confirmed the same in May 23 Government meeting.
Hence, how many families are going to enjoy the support that the Prime Minister indicated? A family can be considered socially insecure if the latter gets family benefit.
Benefits for the rural families are based on the below mentioned criteria.
1. They should not have agricultural plots and are unemployed
2. They have a small plot, but, at the same time, the family is extended and the members are unemployed
3. They have small plots and there are disabled members in the family
However, if the families of these three groups have relatives abroad or a car whose approximate amount is 200 thousand AMD, they will not be able to enjoy any family benefits, and what is more, they cannot be categorized as socially insecure. It is ridiculous, but still a fact that if these families have no debts of land tax, water fee or to any shop, they are unlikely to appear in the list of beneficiaries and socially insecure families.
According to the Health and Social Security Administration approximate data of Armavir Regional Government, socially insecure families that own plots can be counted on the fingers in the marz, and socially insecure families that have no plots are barely one percent of the whole village.
Consequently, a question arises which families are going to be addressed according to the Prime Minister’s review to assist socially insecure families.
If socially insecure families owning plots are going to be addressed, which are very small in the total number of affected families, then, the total amount of aid will be insignificant and speaking out about it is just a populism.
If socially insecure families having no plots are going to be addressed, then, the hail was so disastrous for them that they can no longer have a daily farm work and will have to offer their service to other less hail-affected agricultural farms.
Today 80-90 per cent of the hail-affected 43 villages in Armavir marz is in the catastrophic social situation. Even if the Government assists in covering the base amount of all loans and its percentages, it will not lead to any significant change in farmers’ social condition, because they have no money to buy even dry bread.