Will seek more rabi relief: Krishna Byre Gowda

The government will request the Centre to take a relook at the relief for rabi crop damage and release the money.

Update: 2017-07-01 00:32 GMT
Krishna Byre Gowda

Bengaluru: Karnataka is disappointed with the quantum of relief for failure of the rabi crop last year, said Agriculture Minister Krishna Byre Gowda.

Talking to reporters here on Friday, he said the Centre had released  Rs 795.54 crore to the state as against the estimated loss of Rs 1,200 crore. Though, the relief announced for kharif crops was less, the central government had promised to hike the relief for rabi crop damage which has not happened. The state was disappointed with the quantum of relief but whatever amount has been received, will be disbursed among farmers at the earliest. The government will request the Centre to take a relook at the relief for rabi crop damage and release the money at the earliest, he said.

The minister slammed the union government for its ‘anti-farmer attitude’ while fixing minimum support prices (MSP) for farmers’ produce. On one hand, the government talks of doubling the agricultural income of farmers and on the other hand, it is not addressing  the real problems of farmers. The state has plans to write to the Centre to hike the MSP fixed for certain crops by at least 15 per cent. The previous Congress-led UPA government had increased the MSP by 15 per cent annually. But the BJP led NDA government has been increasing the MSP by just 5 per cent without taking the increased cost of production and inflation into account. Increasing the MSP by a mere 5 per cent would not benefit farmers in any way and their income would decrease by one per cent, he asserted. 

Mr Gowda also felt that since the Centre was opposed to crop loan waiver, it could help farmers by increasing the MSP on agricultural produce. 

Referring to the monsoon, he said there was a rain deficit in the state because of which sowing has been done only in 17.50 lakh hectares of land as against the target of 73 lakh hectares fixed for the kharif season. There was a demand of 22 lakh tonnes of fertiliser and the supply is only 6.61 lakh tonnes. The government had stocked 6.08 lakh tonnes of manure. "We have a stock of 8.70 lakh tonnes of seed whereas the demand is for around 8.53 lakh tonnes. Seeds will be distributed to farmers through Raitha Samparka Kendras,” he added. 

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