Rabi crops in 23,014 hectares of land had been damaged due to hailstorms in the State while affecting 20,000 farmers, Revenue Minister Prem Prakash Pandey informed Chhattisgarh Assembly on Thursday.
The Minister informed that district collectors have been directed to assess the damage caused to crops to distribute compensation to the farmers.
Congress member Bhupesh Baghel said that the Minister has mentioned only a few districts affected by hailstorm while there is a huge region affected by hailstrom.
On one hand, farmers are suffering due to drought and now hailstorm. The State Government should announce special compensation package for the farmers whose crops had been damaged by halstorm, he said.
Using a calling attention notice, the Congress members Bhupesh Baghel, Dhanendra Sahu and Satyanarayan Sharma also said that farmers of drought affected regions have not been distributed compensation.
To this, Revenue Minister Prem Prakash Pandey informed that in those regions where damage caused to crops is more than 33 per cent , compensation is being distributed.
A sum of Rs 586.58 crore had been approved for drought affected districts and Rs 329.84 crore had been distributed , he said.
Employment is being provided through MGNREGS and one quintal of rice had been kept as reserve in all village panchayats to prevent any starvation situation, Pandey said.
He said that no case of farmers being threatened to pay back loans had come to the notice of the Government.
Congress member Satyanarayan Shrma said that not a single Tehsil had received drought compensation amount till January 2018. To this, Revenue Minister Prem Prakash Pandey said that compensation is distributed only after harvesting. All rules had been followed. To this the opposition members staged walkout and sat in front of the statue of Mahatma Gandhi in the Assembly premises while staging a dharna.
Congres member Satyanarayan Sharma later said that that government had failed in checking labour migration.
Revenue Minister Prem Prakash Pandey said no migration has taken place and even before, migration took place from Janjgir-Champa district where people had been going outside the State for work.