Ahmedabad: Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel today in a press conference here declared Rs. 3,795 crore relief package for farmers facing crop damage due to unseasonal rains. Patel said the package will benefit 56.36 lakh farmers across 18,369 villages of 248 talukas through budgetary provision of Rs. 1641 crore and SDRF(State Disaster Response Fund) fund of Rs. 2,145 crore. The State government had earlier announced Rs. 700 crore relief package as initial relief measure. The farmers will get assistance in range of Rs. 4,000 to Rs. 13,000 as per the announcement made by Patel. He added that aid money will be directly deposited to bank accounts through RTGS.

Full note:

In a major relief to over 56 lakh farmers in Gujarat, the state government today announced a relief package of Rs 3795 crore for them of which Rs 2154 crores would be shared by the center while the state would provide Rs 1641 crore.

The government had earlier on November 13 announced a Rs 700 crore package which has now been expanded.

Deputy CM cum Finance Minister of Gujarat Nitin Patel today said that this relief assistance would be apart from the benefits of the crops insurance scheme.

He said that in the 125 talukas of 29 of the total 33 districts where over one inch of non-seasonal rain after October 15 this year has damaged crops, around 28.61 lakh farmers of 9496 villages would get a total of around 2481 crore of assistance of which Rs 1860 crore would be given by the union government.

‘In the 42 other talukas of 23 districts where over one inch of non-seasonal rain had affected crops in clustered areas, around 4.70 lakh farmers of 1463 villages would get a total of Rs 392 crore of assistance. All of these farmers and the ones in earlier mentioned 125 talukas would get Rs 6800 per hectare with the maximum limit of two hectares. Apart from these in the other 1676 villages of these 42 talukas where the non-seasonal rain was less than one inch around 5.95 lakh farmers would get Rs 238 crores of assistance with each of them getting a flat Rs 4000 each ,’ he said.

He said that in the remaining 5814 villages in the 81 talukas of 21 districts of the state where sporadic non-seasonal rain had taken place, around 17.10 lakh farmers would get a total of Rs 684 crores in the form of Rs 4000 for each of them. This way a total of 56.36 lakh farmers of 18369 villages in 248 talukas of all the 33 districts in Gujarat would get a total assistance of Rs 3795 crore.
‘We have also covered those farmers who have not been much affected by the non-seasonal rains,’ he said

Patel said that the government was quite sympathetic to the farmers and would try to transfer the assistance directly in the bank accounts of the farmers.