Opposition raises waterlogging issue in Haryana Assembly, govt announces compensation

The opposition Congress and the INLD Friday raised in the Haryana Assembly the issue of waterlogging being faced by a large number of farmers in various parts of the state, prompting the government to announce a compensation to those affected.

The issue was raised by the opposition parties during the second-half of the day-long Winter Session of the assembly.

Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar told the House that the problem of waterlogging could be resolved to a large extent by diverting the excess water to the areas having water scarcity. He announced that a compensation of Rs 12,000 per acre would be given to those farmers whose crop has been damaged due to waterlogging.

He told the House that it has decided to give a compensation of Rs 6,000 per acre to those farmers who were unable to sow their crop due to waterlogging.

The chief minister announced an online portal to further streamline the 'Girdawari' - revenue survey to assess crop damage - system.

He said with a view to remove shortcomings in the 'Girdawari' conducted manually by the department concerned and to enhance accuracy to assess the damage to crops due to waterlogging, rain, hailstorms, it has now decided to set up the online portal.

Under this, the farmer has to give details concerning its crop and area under cultivation on this portal which would be double-checked by the departments of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare and Revenue so that the farmers do not face any problem while getting claims from insurance companies and banks.

"If any farmer gets price less than the minimum support price for these crops, the state government would cover the price deficit of crops for farmers," he said, adding that as many as 18,000 farmers have so far registered themselves for 48,000 acres under the scheme.

Compensation amounting to about Rs 890 crore has been distributed to the farmers under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) during the last three years in the state, of which Rs 229 crore has been given to farmers of district Sirsa alone, he said.

Taking a dig at the previous Congress government in the state, the chief minister said they "failed" to implement the Swaminathan Commission report.

Khattar said the government has strengthened the system of Western Jamuna Canal (WJC) as a result of this; its capacity has been increased from 10,000 cusecs to 13,500 cusecs.

He said that the present state government has also restarted work on the Lakhwar Dam, which he claimed was hanging fire for the last several years.

The chief minister said that he himself visited the dam and recently a memorandum of understanding (MOU) has been signed between six states, including Haryana, for the dam's construction.

However, former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda took exception and told the chief minister "it is not fair to say as if everything was done during your time" and said that in a democratic set up people are the judge.

Khattar told Hooda, "I am only apprising the House of the facts, but now if these go in someone's favour or against we cannot help it. There is no need to take it personallyYou (previous Congress government) used to start work, but left many midway like Kundli Manesar Palwal expressway project or the national highway project from Rohtak to Punjab. You left many works in between, which we had to complete.