From Our Special Correspondent

Daijiworld Media Network

Bengaluru, Jul 27: Even as the Siddaramaiah government in Karnataka has been urging the Narendra Modi government to come to the rescue of farmers suffering due to drought by announcing waiver of all farm loans from nationalised commercial and scheduled banks, the Congress regime has now opposed the revised Manual for Drought Management 2016 brought out by the Centre.

The revised manual, which will be effective from kharif 2017, will be harmful to the interests of the farmers and therefore the state cabinet has demanded its withdrawal on the ground that it will severely reduce the aid to the state for drought affected taluks.

Chief minister Siddaramaiah wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 24 and said, “Stringent parameters/eligibility conditions will make it difficult for the state government to declare taluks with significant crop loss severely drought affected.”

"The new guidelines, the state cabinet held will drastically reduce the central assistance in future. This will increase hardship of the farmers,” the chief minister said.

The state government has opposed changes in the parameters for drought assessment.

The new manual for drought management limits the centre’s scope to offer financial assistance to states in the eventuality of drought.

Unlike the manual for drought management of 2009, which was a mere guideline and not mandatory for the states to follow, the ‘moderate’ drought category has been deleted in the new manual.

It means drought-hit areas will now be categorised as ‘normal’ and ‘severe.’ Only in case of ‘severe’ drought, a state will be eligible for central assistance from the National Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF).

Siddaramaiah said, “This being the case, most of the genuinely affected small and marginal farmers will not be able to avail of input subsidy for crop loss and it will go against the grain of the scheme.”

The state cabinet has discussed the new manual of the centre in detail.

Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister T B Jayachandra said new conditions included in the norms would make it more difficult for the states to prove ‘severe’ drought and get relief from the Centre as the yardstick to measure severity of drought has been made stricter.

"Let the BJP prove its commitment to farmers and states like Karnataka which is regularly facing drought conditions," Jayachandra said pointing out that the state has been facing drought for the third consecutive year.