Lucknow, Apr 2 (IANS): Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has ordered all district magistrates to sanction the release of financial relief from the state disaster relief fund to farmers who incurred crop losses due to unseasonal rain and hailstorm.

The chief minister said there should be no delay in paying compensation to farmers and emphasized that guarding farmers' interests was the government's top priority.

According to the government spokesman, the chief minister also instructed that timely information should be made available to the farmers about weather forecasts.

He said the wheat crop has been damaged due to natural reasons and it should be procured under the minimum support price.

For this, a necessary proposal should be prepared to relax the rules as per the requirement.

Over the last 24 hours, hailstorms were reported in nine districts of the state including Pilibhit, Bareilly, Sitapur, Aligarh, Moradabad, Sonbhadra, Hamirpur, Sambhal and Unnao, according to details made available from the relief commissioner's office.