Assess crop damage due to rain too: Bihar agriculture minister

PATNA: Taking a departure from the past practices, the agriculture department has asked the DMs of the 28 flood-prone districts to assess the crop damage suffered by the farmers both due to rainfall and floods.
Agriculture minister Amarendra Pratap Singh told mediapersons on Tuesday that the fresh assessment was ordered on the direction of CM Nitish Kumar.
The state began to witness heavy rain from the last week of May even before the formal start of the monsoon around June 12.Several plots of land were flooded by rainwater and no paddy plantation could be done in those plots. The agriculture department has put a condition that such waterlogged plots of land which could not have kharif cropping this year had to have the record of cropping done in the last three years.
Further, with the formal onset of monsoon, floodwaters began damaging cropped land. Kharif crops like paddy and pulses were damaged by the floodwaters.
However, this year, the assessment of the damage caused to the standing sugar cane plantation will also be done for compensation to the farmers, like in the case of paddy and other kharif crops. The major sugar cane growing districts are West Champaran, East Champaran and Sitamarhi.
Incidentally, the September rain is considered useful for paddy. The farmers only want that there should not be accumulation of excess water in the paddy fields.