Punjab: Special girdawari on crop loss to be over by Oct 7

The Punjab Government is rushing to complete the special girdawari, ordered for assessing the crop loss, by early next week.

Once complete, the farmers who have suffered losses during the August-September floods will be able to get the compensation of Rs 20,000 per acre.

It is learnt that the first round of special girdawari has already been completed in the flood-affected areas of the state. This has been done by patwaris, which will now be verified by kanungos and tehsildars in districts.

“We are aiming to complete the special girdawri by October 7. Once this is done, the reports will be published and distributed to the village sarpanches, panches and lambardars,” Additional Chief Secretary Revenue Anurag Verma told The Tribune.

This is r the first time that the state government is publishing its assessment of damage and then giving time to the flood-affected people to file objections in case anyone had been left out. This process had been started at the instance of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, who raised the issue that many big and influential landlords used to get compensation in the past, while the small and marginal farmers were then left out by some unscrupulous revenue officials. Verma further told The Tribune that they had already published and distributed the lists giving assessment of the damage in more than 300 villages.

A total of 2,614 villages have been impacted by the floods.

Official sources had told The Tribune that their initial assessment of crop loss had revealed that 1.58 lakh hectares area under paddy had been damaged, 2,902 hectares area under maize, 12,758 hectares under cotton and 11,896 hectares under sugarcane had also been damaged during the floods of August - September. In these initial estimates, the maximum damage to standing crops had been recorded in Gurdaspur (40,153 hectares), Amritsar (29,523 hectares) and Amritsar (29,523 hectares).

Sources said all farmers who had suffered damage to crops, including horticulture and annual plantation crops (sugarcane in case of Punjab) of over 33 per cent will get the entire compensation of Rs 20,000 per acre. While Rs 6,800 per acre will be given by the Centre, the state government will chip in with Rs 13, 200 per acre.