Question : Damage to Crops by Unseasonal Rains and Hailstorms

(a) whether unseasonal rains and hailstorms have damaged a large quantum of standing Rabi crops such as wheat, chana, jowar and bajra besides high value horticulture crops recently in several parts of the country and if so, the details thereof, State-wise including Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra;

(b) whether the Government has received proposal from the State Governments seeking financial assistance for loss of crops, if so, the details thereof;

(c) whether the Government has sent a Central Team to the affected States to evaluate and ascertain the extent of crop losses and if so, the details thereof along with the estimated quantum of crops reported to be affected and damaged and the amount of losses incurred to the farmers;

(d) whether the Government has fixed any norms and criteria to extend compensation to the farmers whose crops are affected by unseasonal rains and hailstorms and if so, the details thereof; and

(e) whether the Government proposes to extend compensation/interim relief to the affected farmers so that they may not commit suicides and if so, the details thereof along with the steps taken by the Government for providing training and scientific knowledge to the farmers to minimise such crop losses in the event of unseasonal rains and hailstorms in the country?

MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE

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(a): In the month of February, 2018 many States viz; Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Karnataka and other northern States had received rainfall and some States were hit by hailstorms. As per preliminary reports, Crop area affected due to hailstorms in the State of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh & Telangana is at Annexure–I.

(b) & (c): The State Governments are primarily responsible for taking immediate measures in the wake of all natural calamities. The Government of India supplements the efforts of the States with financial and logistic support. State Governments have been requested to take immediate steps to mitigate the impact. State Governments to address the notified calamities by utilizing the funds under State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) and States submit Memorandum as per extant procedure / norms, if additional financial assistance is required from National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) and in the mean time utilize contingency fund of the State, if SDRF is exhausted. In addition, the calamity affected farmers are entitled for claims under various crop insurance schemes. Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers Welfare (DAC&FW) has not received any proposal from the State Governments for seeking support under NDRF for crop losses due to hailstorm in February 2018.

(d) & (e): Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs has issued order on revised terms and norms of assistance under State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) on 8th April, 2015.

The extant norms, inter-alia, provide for assistance to the farmers in the form of agriculture input subsidy (where crop loss is 33% and above) for damage caused to all types agriculture and horticulture cropped areas due to the noticed natural calamities. These are Rs.6,800/- per hectare for rainfed crops, Rs.13,500/- per hectare for irrigated crops, subject to minimum assistance not less Rs.1000/- and restricted to sown areas and Rs.18,000/- per hectare for all type of perennial crops, subject to minimum assistance not less than Rs.2,000/- and restricted to sown areas, where crop loss is more than 33% and above. The State wise allocation of funds under SDRF during 2015-16 to 2019-20 are given at Annexure-II.

The rains during the growth phase of rabi crops are also helpful to the farmers. The occurrence of high intensity hailstorms become unpreventable and lead to destruction of crops. The farmers are given advisory on unseasonal rainfall and hailstorms by Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) and State Governments so that the farmers take steps to save the harvested and mature crops.


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Agrarian distress and unfortunate incidents of suicides can be addressed by enabling the farmers to increase their income. With this understanding, the Government is targeting to double the income of farmers by 2022. To achieve this, DAC&FW has constituted an Inter-Ministerial Committee to examine various dimensions of farmers’ income and to recommend an appropriate strategy. In the meantime, the Government is realigning its intervention to move from production centre to farmers’ income centre platform. The Department has, therefore, been implementing various schemes to meet the objective viz: Soil Health Card Scheme (SHC), Neem Coated Urea, Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY), Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY), e-National Agricultural Marketing (eNAM), Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), interest subvention etc. The Finance Minister, in his Budget Speech for 2018-19, has also announced various measures for welfare of farmers including Minimum Support Price (MSP) for all unannounced Kharif Crops to be one & half time of there production cost, strengthening of rural Haats, creation of Institutional mechanism to develop appropriate policies and practices for price and demand forecast, development of cluster based model, promotion of Farmers Producers Organizations (FPOs), institutional credit at Rs.11.00 lakh crore etc.