Karnataka has faced droughts for six successive cropping seasons leading to huge losses for farmers. (Image for representation/Reuters)
Bengaluru: The Congress, which has been severely critical of the BJP governments’ insensitivity towards farmers in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, has now come under fire for giving Rupee 1 as compensation to farmers in Karnataka for crop loss.
Farmers in Vijapura, Dharwad, Hassan and Koppal districts said on Friday that one rupee was credited to their bank accounts by the State Revenue Department.
In some places, taluk officials tried to explain it away by saying that the money was deposited as part of a ‘trial’ to check whether money is getting transferred to the right accounts after they were linked with Aadhaar cards. But the explanation did not sit well with the farmers.
The BJP, which is in the opposition in the state, raised the issue in the state assembly on Friday and slammed the Congress leaders for their hypocrisy on farmer issues. “The government must be ashamed of itself for treating farmers like beggars,” BJP’s Jagadish Shettar said.
Some farmers have suffered losses running into lakhs of rupees after crops went dry in the last drought. Karnataka has seen successive droughts for six cropping seasons and farmers have been seeking compensation from the government.
A puzzled government was caught off-guard, with Home Minister G Parameshwara saying he would have to get the full details of how this happened before he could react.
Animal Husbandry Minister A Manju continued to offer the explanation of “testing the account authenticity” as Aadhar-linking was completed recently.
“Aadhaar linking has been done for one lakh accounts. However, paying compensation to farmers is not done directly by us, it is to be done by the Natinal Payment of India. Our job is only to identify how many account-holders are there, what is the quantum of crop loss for each farmer and how much compensation is he eligible for,” he told reporters.