Concerned over poor monsoon in Punjab and Haryana, the Centre might announce a relief package for the farmers of these two states by next week, a move likely to make their losses less severe.
The package may include rescheduling of crop loans. However all such benefits would be paid directly to the farmers by crediting it into their bank account or Kissan Credit Card (KCC), as 85 per cent farmers of these states have KCC. This was stated by Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar who was leading a team to drought-affected areas of the two states to review some of the rain deficit areas along with water scarcity conditions. Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh also accompanied him and met ministers and senior functionaries of both the governments to review the present crisis.
Addressing the media, Pawar said, “Both these states are witnessing scanty rainfall in this Khariff season. Punjab witnessed 68 per cent deficient rainfall while in Haryana it was 71 per cent. In some of the districts of Punjab, rainfall was deficient to the extent of even 90 per cent. Despite scanty rainfall, Punjab managed to pull area under cultivation during this Khariff season. The total area under cultivation was 35.20 lakh hectares as on August 8, 2012, compared to 34.80 lakh hectres during the corresponding day of the previous year. As far as Haryana is concerned, sowing was done over 19.73 lakh hectares as on August 3, 2012 compared to 22.88 lakh hectres last year. Thus there has been loss in area of about 3.15 lakh hectres.”
“In such a situation we are committed to help the farmers. Due to draught like situation, the input cost of farmers has gone up as they had to spend money on diesel for irrigation and other facilities. We are going to acccess the details submitted by the state government and the Centre may announce relief package for both these states by next weekend. Already concerned over poor monsoon in several states, the Centre has announced a 50 per cent diesel subsidy to farmers to save standing kharif crops. The subsidy will be directly credited to farmers account or though KCC, as 85 per cent of the farmers of both the states have KCC card. In future, the relief package meant for farmers would be credited directly to farmers bank account. Besides that, we have also requested the Nabard to work on modalities to reschedule the crop loan taken by the farmers and further asked them to work on interest subvention for the farmers. We are going to take up the matter to Commercial banks also for rescheduling of loan,” he added.
Earlier, he mentioned Punjab government has requested a relief package of Rs 5,112 crore, while Harayana has demanded Rs 4,051 crore to mitigate the drought like conditions. These includes cost incurred on buying extra electricity at high cost to save the crop, irrigation, public health, drinking, water supply among others.
“However, there are certain components which does not under the purview of agricuture ministry, the mandate of this committee is provide interim relief to the farmers. However, the state can raise their demands with centre. In this regard, the state must declare drought to seek other benefits,” he added. He also mentioned that the final assessment of drought would be done by November end.
