Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): To compensate for crop damage suffered by banana farmers and other farmers in Burhanpur district, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan transferred Rs 41.85 crore to 4261 farmers through a single click from CM House on Sunday.
The banana farmers suffered crop damage in April, May, June last year. The area of affected crops was 3,690 hectares. Out of this, the area of affected banana crop is 3,470 hectares and that of other crops is 219 hectares.
There are 3,960 banana farmers while other farmers are 301. Bananas from Burhanpur are exported to several countries. In his virtual address, Chouhan said that the government changed many parametres for welfare of the farmers.
Such changes have been made from time to time in the Revenue Book Circular, which benefited the farmers. Now, farmers get more relief amount for damage to crops, houses and loss of lives of cattle. The state government has also created a new category of crop damage. The compensation rate for banana crop has been doubled.
As per this amendment, relief amount will be increased from Rs 15,000 to Rs 30,000 per hectare if the farmer suffers 25% to 33% damage to his banana crops. Similarly, in case of 33% to 50% damage, the relief amount will be increased from Rs 27,000 to Rs 54,000 per hectare.
If the damage is more than 50%, then the relief amount will be Rs 2 lakh per hectare instead of Rs 1 lakh. He also hit out at Congress by saying that previous government of Congress left farmers defaulters. The present state government gave relief to the farmers by paying approximately Rs 2,200 crore to them.
In the last 3 years, an amount of Rs 20,000 crore was paid as insurance claim to more than 1.5 crore farmers. Benefits worth Rs 3 lakh crore were transferred to the accounts of the farmers. Similarly, agricultural loans worth Rs 49,000 crore were given at zero per cent interest.
