A team of the Centre on Sunday visited the district to assess the loss to crop caused by drought and untimely rains in certain parts. The state government had demanded a compensation of Rs. 4,548 crore from the Centre to compensate farmers.

The team, accompanied by officials of the agriculture, seeds, fertilisers and revenue departments of the Haryana government, visited Pinjupura, Kalayat, Balu, Bata and Kelram and Titram villages.

At Pinjupura village, sarpanch Balwant Singh informed the team that farmers of the area had to spend heavily on diesel to run tubewells due to monsoon failure.

He said crops of paddy, cotton, jwar and bajra had suffered massive damage because of the deficiency of water. The water level had gone down by about 10 ft, forcing the farmers to dig that deep for installing tubewells.

Some residents of Balu village said failure of monsoon in July and untimely rains in September had made their lives miserable.

Labh Singh of Pinjupura village said paddy crop drew sustenance from rainwater, canal water and tubewells. The failure of rain in July had reduced the quantity of water in canals too, which damaged the paddy crop badly, he said. Kaithal additional deputy commissioner Arvind Malhan and deputy director of agriculture, Rohtas while taking the team around areas of Pinjupura village, said paddy had been sown in 56,000 hectares and cotton in 13,000 hectares but these crops had suffered badly due to failure of monsoon and recent untimely rain.

Rohtas said crops sown on 500 hectares in Kalayat, 400 hectares in Bata and 50 hectares in Pinjupura had been damaged.

Source - http://www.hindustantimes.com/