Centre announces Rs 560 cr package

There is eventually some respite for Orissa which has been at the receiving end of the Centre's apathy on the issue of receipt of funds for farmers hit by drought and unseasonal rains.

The Government of India has announced a relief package of Rs 560.17 crore which includes Rs 258.7 crore for drought hit farmers and Rs 301.4 crore for the farmers affected by untimely rains that lashed some parts of Orissa in December 2009. The sanction of the fund has been made out of the National Disaster Relief Fund.

"The Centre has sanctioned Rs 560.17 crore for the farmers hit by drought by unseasonal rains. The Special Relief Commissioner received the sanction order yesterday evening. I thank the state Chief Minister and other top officials who have made this possible through their persistent efforts. I also thank the Prime Minister, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and home minister P Chidambaram for sanctioning the relief amount”, minister for revenue and disaster management S N Patra said in the state assembly.

It may be noted that in December 2010, the state Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced a Rs 900-crore compensation package for farmers in the state whose crop was hit by cyclonic depression induced unseasonal rains. The crop loss was experienced in around 12 lakh hectares of land in the state. Farmers in the state were badly affected due to heavy spell of unseasonal rain from December 6 to 13.

The state government had also announced an ex-gratia of Rs 2,000 per hectare who suffered crop loss of more than 50 per cent due to the heavy unseasonal cyclonic rains.

This was over and above the agricultural input subsidy (AIS) at the rate of Rs 2,000 per hectare for rain-fed areas, Rs 4,000 per hectare for irrigated land and Rs 6,000 per hectare for perennial crops provided as per the norms of the Calamity Relief Fund (CRF).