The government has decided to provide financial aid to the farmers within a month whose paddy plantations were destroyed by the unseasonal rains.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development has stated that the decision for distribution of financial compensation has been passed by the Council of Ministers. The ministry will be providing cash relief as per their individual losses in the bank accounts of the individual farmers.
The spokesperson for the Ministry of Agriculture, Prakash Sanjel, said that the distribution of financial relief will proceed soon as the Cabinet meeting held on Monday approved the working procedure prepared by the high-level task force assigned for farmers’ damage assessment.
“The cabinet has approved the procedure for distributing relief to the farmers. The procedure would be published in the Gazette in a few days and cash relief distribution will start within a month,” Sanjel said.
As soon as the procedure is published, the Ministry will issue a 15-days notice to the farmers to apply at the local level with their claim for damages. The application form will be available at the local level in which the bank account of the farmer should be mentioned compulsorily. District Coordinating Committee will verify the claim of loss received from the farmers at the local level.
At the local level, the farmers will be provided with three days to file a complaint if they have any doubt or dissatisfaction about the compensation.
The farmers without a land ownership document ‘lalpurja’ will also get compensation. This means the farmers who had rented land on lease or under contract will also be able to file for government compensation on the basis of agreement documents or local witnesses.
Sanjel informed that such an arrangement has been made so that no farmer would be barred from getting their rightful compensation.
He, however, said that the government’s relief was targeted at small farmers and the objective was to ensure that at least one farmer could get up to Rs 55,000 on an individual basis.
The cabinet meeting held on Monday had decided to provide relief up to 65 percent of the damage to the paddy crop due to floods, landslides and inundation.
