New Delhi, December 3
Senior Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader and Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal today demanded the centre should credit money directly into accounts of farmers for crop damage during the floods to ensure they did not suffer due to cross claims on flood relief between the centre and the State.
Speaking on this issue in parliament, Harsimrat Badal said, “Farmers are suffering due to no fault of theirs. They are still awaiting compensation for crop damages three months after the devastating floods which damaged crops across five lakh acres in the State”. She said a large cultivable area was still under sand and that farmers had been unable to sow wheat due to this.
The Bathinda MP said while the devastation caused by the floods was both a natural disaster and a man made one with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government failing to manage water release from the Ranjit Sagar dam efficiently, the conflicting claims of the State and the Centre on State disaster relief funds were coming in the way of providing financial relief to the suffering farmers. She said besides damage of crops, vast tracts of land beyond the barbed wire fence had been eroded by flooded river waters. “These farmers should be given adequate compensation for the loss of their land”, she added.
Badal said while the centre had claimed that central funds earmarked for disaster relief to the tune of Rs 12,500 crore were lying deposited with the State, the AAP government had claimed that it had only received Rs 1500 crore under this head this year. She said even as this tug of war continued, farmers should not suffer and urged the centre to deposit compensation for crop damaged directly into farmer accounts.
