KOLAR: Former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who visited various places in Kolar to inspect crop loss caused due to the recent heavy rain, said the government should release sufficient compensation to farmers.
The opposition leader told reporters that if the government fails to pay compensation immediately, the Congress will raise the issue in the upcoming session. He said it is not necessary for the chief minister to release compensation under the National Disaster Response Plan (NDRP), and instead, he should release the state government’s share immediately after the survey.
He said when the Congress was ruling Karnataka, the government had released first phase of compensation to farmers immediately after floods, but the BJP government had not even started a survey. When will the government release compensation, he wanted to know.
Siddaramaiah also came down heavily on the BJP government for failing to tackle the situation, and said there are complaints that even district ministers did not visit areas under their jurisdiction. It was only under pressure from the opposition that Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai visited three districts and spoke about compensation through NDRP, he added.
The former chief minister spoke to farmers who have lost crops such as tomato and ragi. He was accompanied by former speaker Ramesh Kumar, MLC Nazeer Ahmed and others.