Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Tuesday informed the Legislative Assembly that compensation for crops in rainfed area has been increased from ₹6,800 to ₹13,600 per hectare, and from ₹13,500 to ₹25,000 per hectare for irrigated area.
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Mr. Bommai said that for horticultural crops, the compensation has been hiked to ₹28,000 per hectare.
Revenue Minister R. Ashok said compensation of ₹116.38 crore to 1.04 lakh farmers would be released in two days. Survey of crop damage had not been completed following rains across the State, he said.
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Mr. Bommai said a revised memorandum would be submitted to the centre seeking compensation for the crop loss. A few days later, it submitted the memorandum mentioning the crop loss at ₹7,647.13 crore. He said the Centre had released ₹325 crore each in April-May and now in September, under the SDRF.
Speaking on losses suffered following floods later in the day, Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah trained his guns on Ministers in BJP government and said most of the district in charge Ministers had failed to either visit or monitor the rain relief works in the districts assigned to them.
Mr. Siddaramaiah maintained that most were busy in Bengaluru though people in the districts assigned to them were suffering due to heavy rain.
Meagre compensation
The State government had provided a meagre crop loss compensation of ₹2,134 crore as against the actual damage to the tune of ₹2 lakh crore suffered by farmers in the last four years due to heavy rain and floods, he alleged, asking the government to be pragmatic while assessing the losses and providing compensation.