Agriculture dept to give compensation of Rs 210 cr to hailstorm-affected farmers

Kolkata: The state Agriculture department will give a compensation of Rs 210 crore to farmers who had incurred loss due to hailstorm in 2018.

Following a direction of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the state Agriculture department has set October 12 as the deadline to complete distribution of cheques among the farmers.

There are more than 3.25 lakh farmers who will be receiving compensation. The state Agriculture department has taken all necessary steps to ensure completion of the distribution of cheques by the set deadline. A farmer will get compensation if 33 percent or more of his agricultural produce has been damaged. This time, the amount of compensation will vary from Rs 1,000 to a maximum amount of Rs 27,000 for each farmer.

Farmers in both North and South Bengal were affected. Farmers from 10 districts including Murshidabad, Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, South Dinajpur, Malda, Birbhum, Nadia, North 24-Parganas and West Midnapore had incurred heavy loss due to the hailstorm. The distribution of cheques has started and to ensure that farmers get the money without any delay, the work is going on in full swing. Asish Banerjee, the state Agriculture minister, distributed cheques among farmers at Rampurhat in Birbhum district, while Pradip Mazumder, advisor to the Chief Minister on agriculture, attended a cheque distribution programme in Cooch Behar.

Banerjee said: "Following the direction of the Chief Minister, we have taken all necessary steps so that farmers get compensation by October 12 and it will help them to cover the losses they have incurred due to the hailstorm."

Farmers who have incurred loss, had applied for compensation to the state government. After going through the application forms properly and assessing the situation in reality, concerned officials prepared a data containing all aspects of each of the farmers.

In the past seven years, the Chief Minister has taken several steps for the benefit of farmers. Most importantly, the Mamata Banerjee government has waived land tax to provide impetus to the agriculture sector. At the same time, the state Agriculture department has taken steps to help farmers adopt new methods and techniques, which has ensured an increase in their income. The average annual income of farmers has gone up to Rs 2.91 lakh.