The country is likely to lose an estimated 4.8 million tonnes of rabi wheat owing to unseasonal rains and hail that hit the standing crop in the last few weeks in several states.
By all accounts this preliminary estimate is bad news as in the previous kharif season there was a dip of about 10 million tonnes of foodgrains due to delayed, staggered and deficient northwest monsoon. This caused huge distress to farmers who had taken loans to cover input costs for rabi sowing prompting the government to announce on Wednesday restructuring of crop loans and revision in compensation to the affected farmers.
This season there has also been damage to horticulture and vegetable produce also impacting a total crop area of 113 lakh hectares, Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh told journalists on the sidelines of a Kharif Conference here on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, even as Congress president Sonia Gandhi wrote to Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan to consider relaxing the norms for moisture content in wheat to be procured for the Public Distribution System, the Centre has taken a decision to lower by 10 per cent the standards for the quality of wheat that is to be procured in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat.
Apart from that, the Food and Consumer Affairs Ministry asked Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh governments to jointly test with the Food Corporation of India the samples of wheat in their state for a decision on relaxation in norms.
Mr. Singh said central teams were being rushed to visit the affected states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana and give their assessment of the damage. Wheat crop has been hit in the early sowing states of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat as also in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab which are yet to harvest. Rajasthan has lost huge quantities of mustard crop.
According to an expert, potato crop had been hit in Punjab and cold storages were not accepting the tuber for storage as it has high moisture content in it.
The Minister said the states had at their disposal finances from the State Disaster Relief Fund for relief and the compensation was being revised upwards. In addition, states have been asked to draw 10 per cent more in case of immediate need for relief. The fund is to the tune of Rs. 7000 crore.
On a question about farmers’ suicides in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab Mr. Radha Mohan Singh said that states that had evolved innovative schemes to mitigate the problems faced by farmers were better off. ``In Madhya Pradesh, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan is coming up with a Crop Insurance Scheme, while the Maharashtra government has decided to double the relief money from state’s own funds.’’
