State to write to Centre on farmers' plight

Law Minister T B Jayachandra on Friday said the State government would send a missive to the Centre asking it not to neglect Karnataka farmers.

Briefing reporters after a Cabinet sub-committee meeting, chaired by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in Bengaluru on Friday, Jayachandra said though Siddaramaiah had appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to help Karnataka by releasing adequate funds to rain-hit districts in the State, the request was not met.

As a result, the State government was forced to release Rs 216 crore as compensation to farmers who have incurred losses due to crop damage during the unseasonal rains between April 8 and 16 in eight North Karnataka districts in the State, he said.

Farmers in Koppal, Ballari, Raichur, Yadgir, Kalaburagi, Bidar, Vijayapura and Gadag had incurred Rs 596.79 crore losses owing to crop damage on 67,000 hectares. They require immediate assistance, he said.

Review of districts

Jayachandra said the Centre had also chosen not to send an inter-ministerial Central team to review the rain-hit districts.

“Union Minister for Agriculture, Radha Mohan Singh, has written to us stating that Karnataka will instead have to make do with Rs 103 crore under the State Disaster Response Fund, which will be released shortly,” he said.

The minister said the deputy commissioners of the said districts had been directed to distribute the amount to farmers from Saturday.

He said the government had increased the compensation amount from Rs 13,000 per hectare to Rs 25,000 per hectare.