Karnataka loses crops on 80,000 hectares due to heavy rains
Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda
Crops on nearly 80,000 hectares of land have been lost due to heavy rains that lashed different areas of the State, according to Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda.
He told media persons after a review meeting of his department that compensation for crop loss would be provided to farmers within a week.
Giving the break-up of losses, he said agricultural crops on 78,679 hectares and horticultural crops on 2,294 hectares had been lost. However, the losses were likely to go up as the rains would continue for another 45 days. Hence, the State would wait till the completion of the southwest monsoon period to submit a memorandum to the Centre for compensation, he said.
Mr. Byre Gowda said the State had witnessed 26% excess rains than the average so far under the southwest monsoon. The rains were excess over the average by 24% in north interior region, 21% in Malnad region, and 28% in coastal region. None of the districts had reported below average rainfall, he said.
He said the forecast had indicated that the southwest monsoon would gain steam from August 16 and that the monsoon impact would continue for the next one-and-a-half months.
In the coming days, good rains were expected to in the central Karnataka region, including Bengaluru, the Cauvery and Krishna river basins, and the Karnataka-Maharashtra boundary region. Hence, the Deputy Commissioners concerned had been instructed to take precautionary measures to handle floods.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will hold an important meeting with officials concerned in the wake of indications of heavy rains after August 15, he said.
So far, 58 people had died in rain-related incidents this year as against 75 during the corresponding period in 2022 and 67 in 2019, Mr. Byre Gowda pointed out.
Encroachment drive
The Revenue Department is set to begin a State-wide drive to clear encroachments on government lands in September based on the data collated by Land Beat App, according to Mr. Byre Gowda.
The minister explained that all the village administrative officers had been asked to upload information related to the extent of government land in their jurisdiction on land beat app since the last eight months. Through the information provided by them, it has now turned out that there is an extent of 1.41 crore acres of government land belonging to the Departments of Revenue, Forest, Education and PWD in the state. The government now had information and location related to this with district, taluk and village-wise break-ups, he explained.
While identification of government land was part of the first phase of such an initiative, the officials concerned had been told in the second phase to make physical visits to the government lands and upload details on the app on whether those lands have been encroached. Details in this regard had been obtained with respect to 90 per cent of government lands, he noted, while asserting that the encroachment clearance drive would begin from September through tahsildars concerned.
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