Rs 57 lakh relief given to 1,078 Bilaspur farmers: Dharmani
Technical Education Minister Rajesh Dharmani said today that 1,078 disaster-affected farmers in Bilaspur district were provided compensation of Rs 57 lakh following amendments to the relief manual.
Dharmani said that previous governments offered a meagre compensation of Rs 1,400 per bigha of agricultural land affected by floods. The Congress government led by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu increased the relief amount form Rs 1,400 to Rs 5,000 per bigha. The compensation for damage to cultivable and horticultural land was raised from Rs 3,600 per bigha to Rs 10,000 per bigha and for crop loss was raised from Rs 500 per bigha to Rs 2,000 per bigha.
Dharmani said that the Agriculture Department has brought 230.63 hectares of land under irrigation in the past two years while under Him Unnati Yojana 72 clusters were established in villages in the district. A cluster was allocated Rs 10 lakh to strengthen agricultural infrastructure and adopt modern techniques.
The minister said that in past two years more than Rs 5 crore was spent on providing farm machines to farmers, including 38 tractors, 116 power weeders and tillers, 300 tool kits and 1,650 fodder cutting machines with a subsidy of 50 per cent. He added that the government had provided Rs 1.57 crore as subsidy.
He said for protecting crops, fencing of 151 plots was done at Rs 3.90 crore. The Mukhyamantri Kisan Evam Khetihar Mazdoor Jeevan Suraksha Yojana was introduced and Rs 6.50 lakh were given to 13 farmers in Bilaspur district in past two years for injuries or fatalities caused during the use of agricultural machinery.
