Govt to examine farmers’ demand for drought relief

Sat Singh

Tribune News Service

Bhiwani, May 26

The state government has agreed to examine the issue of providing compensation on old terms to bail out the drought-hit farmers.

Earlier, the government had decided to compensate farmers for crop loss in just five acres, and that too at old rates and not for the loss in their entire land.

Expressing resentment over the move, the peasantry class had staged a dharna outside the SDM office in Siwani Mandi of the district.

The farmers had held the district administration responsible for the delay of compensation.

“According to an RTI, the Deputy Commissioner did not withdraw the compensation of the 2015 drought-hit crops released in September till April and it had lapsed. Now, we are being punished for government officers’ negligence by imposing new norms,” said Dayanand Poonia, secretary, All-India Kisan Sabha.

After talks with district-level officers, a delegation, led by Poonia, had recently met State Revenue and Finance Minister Capt Abhimanyu at his official residence in Chandigarh.

Farmer’s delegation told Abhimanyu that though the government had again released nearly Rs 18 crore for them, it did not have the provision to compensate farmers beyond the crop loss of five acres.

Poonia told The Tribune over the phone that they were given a patient hearing by Capt Abhimanyu and promised to get the issue examined.