Bihar's government has transferred Rs 112.52 crore directly into the bank accounts of 2,48,704 farmers whose crops and land were damaged in this year's floods, one of the larger relief payments of the season, Global Agriculture reported. Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary announced the transfer on 14 October under the state's Agriculture Input Grant Scheme, which pays for seed, fertiliser and other inputs lost when standing crops are destroyed.
The payment went by Direct Benefit Transfer, straight to farmers rather than through intermediaries, a route the state increasingly uses to speed up disaster relief.
Heavy rain and sudden rises in several major rivers in late August flooded the state's northern and central plains. State disaster officials said about 50 lakh people in 15 districts were affected, including Patna, Bhojpur, Saran, Vaishali, Bhagalpur, Begusarai and Purnea, with 576 gram panchayats under water at the peak. The Kosi crossed the danger mark at Baltara and Kursela and the Ganga at Kahalgaon. Twenty-seven state and eight national disaster response teams and 391 boats were deployed, and community kitchens served nearly 1.96 crore meals.
The floods came in a year when Bihar's monsoon rainfall was about 29% below the long-term average by late September. Destructive floods can still happen in a deficit year when short, intense rain upstream and releases from barrages on rivers shared with Nepal overwhelm embankments. About three-quarters of north Bihar is considered flood-affected in a typical monsoon because of Himalayan rivers such as the Kosi, Gandak, Bagmati and Kamla Balan.
The timing matters to farmers. Coming about seven weeks after the worst flooding, the money arrives as they prepare fields for wheat, maize and pulses. Delays in past years have pushed farmers into informal credit to buy inputs, so a quick payment this season, if it holds as other districts file claims, would be a modest improvement.
Photo: Manoj nav / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
Source: Global Agriculture
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