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Farmers in distress will get higher relief from the Government. These farmers are facing a crisis as rabi crops in over 100 lakh hectares have been damaged due to unseasonal rain and hailstorms.
After getting on-the-spot assessment reports about the damage from senior Ministers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced that the criteria of 50 per cent crop damage for providing compensation to affected farmers has been reduced to 33 per cent, which will help more farmers get compensation for their crop loss.
“The second important decision we have taken is to raise the parameters for helping him (the farmer). The amount of compensation has been increased to 1.5 times. If earlier, he was getting Rs 100 as compensation, now he will get Rs 150, if it was Rs 1 lakh, he will get Rs 1.5 lakh... a 50 per cent increase,” he said while launching MUDRA (Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency) here on Wednesday.
He expressed concern over the problems faced by farmers due to abnormal weather conditions over the past year. He said that helping the farmer in this time of distress is the Government’s responsibility and, therefore, it had sent teams of Central Ministers to the affected areas to assess the extent of damage. He said the Union and State Governments, the banks and insurance companies would do their utmost to provide relief to the farmers. Banks have been asked to restructure farm loans, while insurance companies have been asked to settle claims of farmers on a priority basis.
On providing higher compensation to the affected farmers, Modi said, “(it) will impose a heavy burden on the exchequer but it is important to help them as they are in distress.”
Unseasonal rains and hailstorms have damaged rabi (winter-sown) crops in 113 lakh hectares of area across 14 states. The total cultivable area in the rabi season stands at 600 lakh hectares. Rabi crops mainly include wheat, mustard and pulses. Last week, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the Government is reviewing norms to raise the compensation limit of farmers in case of drought or heavy rains damaging the crops.
The Government had also set up an informal group of ministers, headed by Home Minister Rajnath Singh to look into the issue of raising the cap for financial assistance given to farmers whose crops have been affected due to unseasonal rains and other natural calamities.
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