BHUBANESWAR: Even as disbursement of the `300 crore input subsidy, announced by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik last week, will take at least three months, the need for institutional support for flood-hit farmers across the State, has been stressed by the BJP Krushak Morcha.
The disbursement of input subsidy in shape of cash and farm inputs will reach the farmers by the end of Rabi cultivation. In the absence of institutional financial support, the farmers will be forced to meet their cash requirement from private money lenders at exorbitantly higher interest rate, said State BJP Krushak Morcha general secretary Surath Biswal.
Biswal, who hails from Puri district, badly affected by the recent floods said that the Government needs to provide immediate cash compensation to farmers who have lost their vegetable crops. The vegetable farmers are worst hit due to successive calamities since cyclone Fani. Farmers of the coastal districts have been sustaining huge losses after imposition of lockdown due to Covid-19 pandemic followed by untimely rains and hailstorms. “Input subsidy on farm implements is a farce.
The real subsidy is going to the pockets of companies supplying agricultural implements and the administrators,” he alleged. As per the special package of the State Government, agriculture input subsidy of Rs 6,800 per hectare will be given in rain-fed areas to small and marginal farmers who have sustained crop loss of 33 per cent and Rs 13,500 per hectare in areas under assured irrigation and Rs 18,000 per hectare for all types of perennial crops. Biswal said the package leaves out farmers who own more than five acre land. “As a majority of the farmers are share croppers, there is no guarantee that they will get any benefits,” he said.