Cyclone Biparjoy: Govt announces Rs 240-cr package for farmers of only Kutch & Banaskantha

According to state government’s own admission on July 5, the cyclone that lashed the state in June caused extensive damage in 10 districts. It caused loss of Rs 1,100 crore to the state’s electricity network and the government distributed Rs 11.6 crore of financial assistance to the those affected, which included assistance for rebuilding houses destroyed.

“A total of 1.3 lakh hectare of agriculture and horticulture crops were affected by the cyclone in Kutch and Banaskantha. Many fruit trees partially or fully collapsed. In these two districts, 311 teams of the agricultural department surveyed the losses,” Patel said on Friday.

The farmers will get a maximum of Rs 1.25 lakh per hectare. This compensation will be limited to two hectares per farmer. “The speciality of the package is that compensation will be paid to farmers who has suffered loss of 10 per cent or more of the total area of his farm. Earlier, we used to compensate farmers only if their loss was over 33 per cent or more ,” Patel said thanking Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel for approving the package.
The compensation will be provided from the State Disaster Response Fund and through the state treasury.

Leaders of Opposition Congress, who visited some of the cyclone-affected districts in June, had pointed out that farmers engaged in drip irrigation in Kutch and Banaskantha districts have lost their drip irrigation systems in the flood waters during the cyclone. They had also spoken about losses to fishermen and their boats in coastal districts like Dev Bhumi Dwarka and Jamnagar.