Conduct survey to assess crop loss due to heavy rains: Siddaramaiah urges Bommai

BENGALURU: The Opposition Congress on Thursday urged the State Government to conduct a comprehensive survey to assess crop loss due to heavy rains in the last few weeks and provide compensation to farmers. 

In a letter to Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, Opposition Leader in Assembly Siddaramaiah said as per the information provided by the Agriculture Department, crops on 11.22 lakh hectares was damaged due to rains, but the department has no information about the extent of damage in districts that received heavy rains in last one-and-half months. “There is no information with the department about the extent of damage to areca, coffee and pepper in Malnad and coastal Karnataka districts,” he said.

“Survey was not done to assess the extent of damage to crops in south interior Karnataka districts, including Bengaluru, Bengaluru Rural, Kolar, Ramnagara, Mandya and Mysuru and farmers in other parts of the state are also facing hardship due to rains since July. The government has not taken any measures to get the survey done or to provide compensation,” Siddaramaiah stated.

Siddaramaiah said that the Union Government has also not given adequate compensation. “In 2019-20 and 2020-21, the loss was to the extent of Rs 1.5 to 2 lakh crore. But the Centre in 2019-20, gave just Rs 1652.85 crore and in 2020-21, Rs 1328.30 was released. However, only Rs 2981.15 crore was released,” Siddaramaiah stated in the letter to Bommai.  

Farmers did not get fertilisers at the right time and now they are facing problems due to heavy rains, but the state and central governments failed to provide assistance to them, he thundered.  “The government must immediately conduct a comprehensive survey to assess crop loss and provide compensation to farmers,” Siddaramaiah concluded.