Silchar, July 20: The Assam government is likely to grant relief, both in cash and kind, to farmers affected by the dry spell.
A senior agriculture department official today said both the revenue and relief departments were now charting a scheme for relief.
He said Dispur has asked the agriculture offices in the state’s 14 drought-affected districts, including Cachar and Hailakandi in Barak valley, to prepare the estimate of the loss that each of these districts had suffered in May, June and early July to help the government announce relief measures.
The possible relief that might accrue to the farmers in the districts, where the current heat wave and the absence of rain is now shrivelling the crops, are likely to include among others the tax holiday on the payment of the land revenue for a year.
The senior official also added that other benefits to the peasants now reeling under this dry spell would include grant of seeds as well as petrol and diesel to run the generators for irrigation.
Both Cachar and Hailakandi districts are now smarting under a “drought-like” situation with the rain playing truant in the farming seasons beginning end-March.
The agriculture officials here said both the districts had suffered nearly 20 to 25 per cent crop loss because of the dry spell this year.
Subrata Bhattacharjee, the Cachar district agriculture officer, warned that if it does not rain in the coming two weeks, the late ahu crop and the green shoots of the already transplanted sali crop, the staple food in the districts under the Barak valley, would take a major hit.
The peasants in Cachar district had geared up this year to sow seeds in 17,000 hectares of ahu farmlands and 96,815 hectares of land ideal for the sowing of sali paddy.
Bhattacharjee said in May this year only 244mm rainfall had been recorded in Cachar as against the 1,004mm of rain in May last year.
The rainfall during June in the district, however, had warmed up the cockles of the farmers in Cachar whose numbers are pegged at 200,800, with rain drenching the dry fields with 526mm of rain as against 677mm in June last year.
In the first two weeks of July the district received only about 250mm rainfall as against 700mm in July last year.
If the rain clouds fail to bring showers during the next two weeks, there is every chance that this dry spell would graduate into a drought in Cachar this year.
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