Rs 1,750 cr for input subsidy to farmers amid damage of crops

The Bihar government today sanctioned Rs 1,750 crore to be withdrawn from the contingency fund as input subsidy to farmers whose crops were damaged in storm two days ago besides unseasonal rain and hailstorm in the past few months.
The decision was taken at a cabinet meeting presided over by the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the Principal Secretary (Cabinet Coordination) B Pradhan told reporters.
To facilitate withdrawal of Rs 1,750 crore from the contingency fund, the state government has enhanced the permanent corpus under the said fund from the earlier limit at Rs 350 crore to Rs 4,827.21 crore till March 30, 2016, he said.

The enhancement of the permanent corpus limit was necessitated by need to make available additional fund to mitigate the woes of those farmers by way of payment of input susidy in view of damage to their crops in the storm in northern and northeastern districts of Bihar on April 22, Pradhan said quoting from the proposal in this regard by the finance department.
The Principal Secretary (Cabinet Coordination) said that the farmers will get input subsidy in the event of damage of crop by 33 per cent or more with minimum subsidy raised to Rs 1,000 crore as per the revised guidelines under the National Disaster Response Fund.

The new norm for providing input subsidy to the farmers will be effective for those whose crops were damaged in the unseasonal rain and hailstorm in February and March this year, Pradhan said.
He said the state government has sanctioned Rs 1,750 crore as advance to meet expenditure on providing input subsidy to the affected farmers in 37 districts of Bihar as it was felt that a fund of Rs 16.08 crore available under the non-plan head of the agriculture department to meet such expenditure was meagre.