Compensation worth Rs 308 cr to farmers affected by recent floods announced

Kolkata: The state government will give a total compensation worth Rs 308 crore to farmers who have been badly affected due to the recent floods in 13 districts of Bengal in July.

There was incessant rainfall from July 21 to 26 and it left major parts of the districts inundated. The state government had provided all possible support to people to help them during the floods.

Now, the Mamata Banerjee government has decided to give compensation to farmers who were badly affected during that time.

Asish Banerjee, the state Agriculture minister, said: "The step to provide compensation to the affected farmers has been taken following directions of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee."

A communique has been sent to district administrations in Birbhum, Murshidabad, Hooghly, Howrah, Bankura, Purulia, Jhargram, East and West Midnapore and East and West Burdwan directing them to "submit Block-wise schedule of distributing cheques" that is going to start from November 15. The district authorities have directed to take immediate steps to prepare the schedule to ensure that there is no delay in giving compensation to the affected farmers.

The highest amount of compensation will be given to farmers in East and West Midnapore. The compensation will be given from the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF).

The farmers were left clueless after incurring such a huge loss due to the floods when timely interference by the state government provided all sorts of support to help them out of the crisis. Now, the compensation will help them continue their farming without facing much trouble.

The state government has also given compensation worth Rs 205 crore to farmers when they had incurred a heavy loss due to unpredictable rain and hailstorm when the Monsoon had set in all of a sudden early this year. The distribution of cheques of this particular compensation package is almost complete, said an official.

It may be mentioned that since the change of guard in the state, the government has given agricultural input subsidy worth Rs 1336.43 crore among 32.83 lakh farmers for crop damage due to natural calamities like hailstorm, unseasonal heavy rain, floods, drought etc under SDRF.