Karnataka - Gulbarga   

Expedite payment of compensation amount to farmers: Congress

GULBARGA: The Gulbarga district unit of the Congress on Wednesday demanded that the Government expedite payment of compensation due to sugarcane growers and crop insurance compensation due to farmers.

District Congress Committee president Allamprabhu Patil and District Youth Congress president Ustad Naseer Hussain told presspersons here that the Government should release calamity relief funds to the district to take up relief and repair works, including damaged roads and bridges, and pay compensation to farmers who lost their crops and houses in the floods and heavy rain in June.

Mr. Patil said that it was unfortunate that although the district administration had submitted a report stating that sugarcane in 15,042 acres of land had remained uncrushed and more than Rs. 15.04 crore would have to be paid as compensation, the Government is yet to act on it.

However, as per information available now, the sugar director has cast doubts about the veracity of the report submitted by the district administration and has decided to send another team of officials to do a random sample survey.

Mr. Patil said this decision would not serve any purpose now as farmers removed uncrushed sugarcane from the fields following a survey conducted by the Deputy Commissioner. It was strange that the sugar director was suspecting the survey conducted by the district administration, Mr. Patil said and added that there was no room for foul play or wrong claims by farmers.

The Government should immediately accept the report and release the compensation as promised earlier.

Mr. Patil said the delay in releasing crop insurance compensation due to farmers amounting to Rs. 85 crore to the district was uncalled for.

The Government should release its share of the insurance amount to the agriculture insurance company for immediate payment of compensation amount to farmers.

He said that of the Rs. 85 crore crop insurance compensation, Rs. 48 crore would be paid to farmers in Jewargi taluk, followed by Rs. 32.50 crore to farmers of Aland taluk, Rs. 3 crore to farmers in Shahapur, Rs. 1 crore to farmers in Surpur taluk and Rs. 50 lakh to farmers in Kamalapur hobli in Gulbarga taluk.

There was no need for constituting a fact finding committee to verify the records on how Jewargi farmers could get more insurance amount as the insurance company had conducted a cross verification in this regard and certified that the claims of Jewargi farmers were genuine.

He also demanded that the Government withdraw the proposal not to extend crop insurance benefit to farmers whose loans have been waived and pointed out that the crop insurance scheme was different from the loan waiver scheme.

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