CHENNAI: Agriculture Minister MRK Panneerselvam on Wednesday announced that the state government has sanctioned Rs 289.63 crore from the State Disaster Response Fund as input subsidy relief assistance to farmers who have lost their standing crops due to the northeast monsoon and unseasonal rainfall in 2024, as well as gale wind in January 2025. A GO has been issued in this regard on December 23.
According to assessments, crops over 4.90 lakh acres and horticultural crops over 76,132 acres were affected. Hence, relief assistance amounting to Rs 289.63 crore has been sanctioned from the disaster response fund to 3.60 lakh farmers. Of this, Rs 254.38 crore has been sanctioned for 2.80 lakh farmers affected by heavy rain, and Rs 35.25 crore for 80,383 horticulture farmers. The minister said the relief assistance would be directly credited to the bank accounts of the farmers.
The GO issued by the revenue and disaster management department said damages to agriculture and horticulture crops in 31 districts were assessed due to the northeast monsoon in 2024 and unseasonal rainfall in 2025. Similarly, due to heavy rainfall during the northeast monsoon in 2024, gale wind and unseasonal rainfall during January 2025 damaged horticulture crops in 24 districts.
An official release said that when agricultural and horticultural crops cultivated over 5.66 lakh acres were damaged due to the unseasonal rain in November-December 2024 and January 2025, revenue and agriculture department officials conducted joint field assessments in the affected districts, as per the directions of Chief Minister MK Stalin. Areas with crop damage exceeding 33% were identified, and based on this, proposals seeking relief assistance were obtained from the district collectors and examined.