Whitefly attack: Rs 10 cr relief for cotton growers in Punjab

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today announced to give immediate compensation of Rs 10 crore to cotton growers whose crop was extensively damaged by whitefly attack.
The compensation was announced to those growers who have uprooted their crop because of the pest attack.
A decision to this effect was taken by CM during a meeting with the delegation of Bhartiya Kissan Union(Sidhupur) led by its president Pishora Singh here today.
Badal was apprised in the meeting by the officials of revenue department that out of 11,780 acres area ploughed back by the farmers, 5,000 acres fell in Muktsar, 3,727 acres in Fazilka, 2,090 acres in Bathinda, 539 acres in Mansa, 398 acres in Faridkot and 26 acres in Barnala districts.

Interacting with the members of the delegation, the Chief Minister assured cotton growers that they would be duly compensated for the substantial loss incurred by them due to whitefly attack.
Badal said the state government has already taken a conscious decision to bail out those farmers who had ploughed back their fields owing to whitefly attack.

Referring to the damage caused to the standing cotton crops due to whitefly, the Chief Minister asked the revenue department to complete the entire 'Girdawari' (crop loss assessment) in these affected districts of the Malwa belt within next 10 days.
In another significant decision, the Chief Minister also directed the revenue department to cover the other crops like guar and vegetables besides cotton on the similar pattern as followed in case of damaged cotton crop.

Subsequently, after disposing of the objections raised by farmers in this regard, the revenue officials would release the compensation amount to the affected farmers as per the assessment report by the end of this month.
The Chief Minister also directed the revenue department to reiterate its directions to make the payment of compensation directly to the cultivators in case of land was given to the cultivators by the owners on contract farming so as to mitigate hardships caused to them in receiving payments from the revenue officials.
The Chief Minister said anyone responsible for supplying pesticides and insecticides of spurious quality to farmers would not be spared at any cost.

He informed the delegation that the state police department had already taken 208 samples of such substandard pesticides from the dealers in the Malwa belt and an appropriate action would be taken against such erring suppliers after the inquiry.
He also asked Director Bureau of Investigation to immediately take suitable action against those dealers who were allegedly disposing of huge quantities of such fake pesticides in the nearby canals just to evade police action or an inquiry.
The Chief Minister unequivocally stated that such dealers who had done havoc with the cotton and other crops nurtured with their blood, sweat and tears would be dealt with severely.

Conceding to another demand of the farmer's delegation, the Badal also asked both the Agriculture and Power departments to issue requisite notifications to initiate procedure for the release of new tube well connections.
National Green Tribunal has ruled to release these connections to the eligible applicants well before the sowing of next Rabi crops.