HASSAN: The Youth Congress has called for "Hassan Bandh" on July 8 to protest against the apathy of the Government in releasing compensation due to farmers under the crop insurance scheme for the potato crop lost,

The former Minister B. Shivaram told presspersons here on Monday that the party leaders, including the former Minister H.C. Srikantaiah, the former MP G. Puttaswamy Gowda, MLA S.M. Anand, and the former Minister Harnahalli Ramaswamy would participate in the protest programme. Mr. Shivaram said that 53,125 farmers had paid Rs. 11.14 crore as premium for the potato crop cultivated in 2005-06 and lost the crop because of excess rain last year. They were facing problems in cultivating potato crop. The district administration had estimated the crop loss at Rs. 19.69 crore, of which the Government had released Rs. 8.20 crore and was yet to release the remaining Rs. 11.49 crore, he added.

Over 15,000 farmers in the district faced problems because the district administration had asked them to withdraw the premium totalling Rs. 2.29 crore that they remitted to insurance company as the Government clarified that insurance companies had decided against accepting the premium remitted by farmers between August 1 and 4, he said.

Chikungunya

Accusing the district administration of not taking steps to contain chikungunya, he said the District Health Officer (DHO) was misguiding the people by providing wrong figures.

The district in-charge Minister had not taken the issue seriously, he said. Despite thousands of people suffering from the disease, the Health Department had not taken steps to supply medicine needed and fog the mosquito breeding areas, he said.

He urged the Chief Minister to direct the authorities concerned to take immediate action in this regard.

Taking objection to the decision of the Government to set up Chamundeshwari Sugar Factory in Holenarsipur, he described the move as an attempt to ruin Hemavathi Cooperative Sugar Factory of Srinivasapura in Channarayapatna taluk.

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