The State Government on Saturday assured the Assembly that farmers whose crops have been affected by floods and deficit rainfall will be compensated after receiving crop loss reports from the field level. Replying to a calling attention notice of Government Chief Whip Ananta Das and other ruling BJD members, Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Bijayshree Routray said deficit rainfall has been reported from 10 districts while eight districts were affected by floods. As per the district reports, out of 314 blocks in the State, 204 have received normal rainfall while 110 blocks have experienced less than normal rainfall. Districts which received deficit rainfall (-19 per cent to -39 per cent) include Koraput, Bargarh, Balangir, Boudh, Kandhamal, Keonjhar, Sonepur, Nayagarh, Khurda and Dhenkanal. While 23 blocks have received rainfall less than 39 per cent of the normal rainfall, situation in five blocks is acute as the rainfall is less than 59 per cent. In a normal monsoon year, rainfall in August is about 356 mm. Report received till August 28 stated that the State has received about 234 mm of rain which is 27.2 per cent less than normal, the Minister told the Assembly. Reports from Collectors of flood-affected districts said crops in 41,767 hectares (ha) of land have been affected by floods and crop loss of more than 33 per cent has been reported from Balasore, Bhadrak and Jajpur. The State Government is waiting for the crop cutting reports from Revenue, Agriculture and Horticulture departments. Compensation for crop loss will be announced on the basis of crop cutting experiment, he said. The Minister assured that the Government is well prepared to meet the situation arising out of less rainfall. The State Government has set a foodgrain production target of 10.1 million tonnes (mt) for the 2015 kharif season which includes 9.51 mt of cereals and 0.587 mt of pulses. Source - http://www.newindianexpress.com