Agri minister assesses crop damage

Kolkata: State Agriculture minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay on Friday held a meeting with his department officials at Nabanna to take stock of the situation of crops across the state with untimely rainfall on Thursday and Friday.

Chattopadhyay said that as per reports from different districts, there has not been any significant effect on agriculture across the state except some pockets from East Burdwan districts like Memari where rainfall has been more than 6 mm. In all other districts, rainfall has been in the range of 3.5 to 6 mm which has hardly affected crops.

“We are sending our teams for field inspection in all these pockets from where there have been reports of crop damage. Based on the field report, we will do the needful to compensate the farmers who have incurred losses,” he added.

Just a few months back, the state has released Rs 197crore to 2.46 lakh affected farmers who could not sow paddy due to deficit in rainfall under Bangla Shasya Bima (BSB), which is a fully state-funded crop insurance scheme. The entire premium amount is borne by the government and the farmers are not required to pay anything. Since the inception of BSB, Rs 2286.11 crore has been disbursed to the farmers. “The farmers of the state should be assured of adequate compensation under BSB,” Chattopadhyay said.