Punjab govt hikes compensation for farmers

Punjab government today announced that the compensation paid to the farmers, who incurred huge crop damage due to adverse weather conditions, would be hiked from present Rs 5,000 to Rs 8,000 per acre.
Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, while presiding over a high level meeting to review the loss of crop due to rains, expressed concern over the huge damage to the wheat crop in nearly 1.20 lakh acres of land across the state.
He said "it is the moral duty of the state government to bail these farmers out" and directed the officials concerned to ensure that every affected farmer was given the relief in a time-bound manner.

The state government would bear an expenditure of Rs 96 crore for assisting the farmers who have lost their crops due aberrations in weather during the months of February, March and April.
The Chief Minister immediately sanctioned a relief of Rs 52 crore to be disbursed among the farmers and directed the officials to ensure that the remaining Rs 44 crore were also distributed to them within a week, an official release said.