The pace of disbursement of relief amount among the farmers whose crops have been damaged due to unseasonal rain this year seems to be going quite slow in the mountainous State which added to the woes of the affected people.
The matter of concern is that only 6,000 farmers have so far been given relief in Pithoragarh out of 34,119 who had been identified as affected farmers due to unseasonal rain as per the Rabi crop damage survey done in Pithoragarh till April 25.
Whereas the number of affected farmers in Pithoragarh could go up since then, as is believed, a majority of the affected farmers still remain deprived of the minimum relief that the State Government is extending to them.
As per the Rabi crop damage survey done in Pithoragarh, total loss has been estimated Rs6.18 crore till April 25-loss to agriculture sector estimated at Rs3.90 crore and Rs2.28 crore to the horticulture sector — said Shushil Kumar, district magistrate, Pithoragarh.
More so, an amount of Rs2 crore has already been released by the State Government to be disbursed among the affected farmers. Besides, efforts are on to ensure speedy disbursement of the relief amount among the affected farmers, added Kumar.
But even out of this released relief amount of Rs2 crore, as the officials concerned of Pithoragarh district administration said, just Rs90 lakh has been distributed among 6,000 affected farmers across this district so far.
It may be recalled that earlier, the district administration, Pithoragarh, had directed the officials concerned to disburse the relief amount among the affected farmers in the district by May 10. However, it is to be seen whether it succeeds to disburse the relief amount among the farmers in the given or not.
In a bid to reach out to every affected farmer across the district, Pithoragarh district administration has also asked the officials concerned to do the verification of the affected farmers at the village levels so that relief amount could be provided to each of the affected farmers.
However, farmers are unhappy. They say that the amount is yet to reach most of them despite the sowing season of Kharif crop having set in.
Though Nainital district administration claims to have distributed Rs1 crore among 96,000 farmers across the district it has again demanded an additional Rs18 crore to provide relief to the affected farmers who have not yet received any such relief so far.