The West Bengal government will distribute free seeds to farmers in flood affected areas of the state, state agriculture minister, Asish Banerjee has said.<\/p>\n
Major damage was caused this year to crops \u2013 aman<\/em> rice and vegetables mainly \u2013 due to prolonged rain and extensive flooding of large areas in several districts of West Bengal. Several thousand hectares of land has gone under water in 40 blocks spread over six districts.<\/p>\n A meeting was held in the state administrative headquarters, Nabanna, on Wednesday to decide on the measures to be taken to compensate the losses. Detailed reports were presented on the extent of damage caused to crops in the flooded areas.<\/p>\n An exhaustive list of places which incurred maximum losses due to flooding was handed over to the minister at the meeting. Seeds of rice, black gram lentil (kolai<\/em>), urad<\/em> and maize will be distributed for free in the affected areas, an official said.<\/p>\n Keeping in mind the advent of winter season during which large variety of vegetables are grown, it was decided that seeds of various vegetables will also be given to farmers for free. Jute cultivation in Malda has also been badly affected by the floods. Malda is the largest producer of one of the best qualities of jute in India. Jute seeds will be given to farmers in Malda, it was decided. Major damage was caused this year to crops due to prolonged rain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":279,"featured_media":6944,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"tmauthors":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6943","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-bengal"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/279"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6943"},{"taxonomy":"tmauthors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tmauthors?post=6943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe state already has an ongoing flagship initiative known as \u201cKrishak Bandhu Prakalpa\u201d (loosely translated to \u201cfriend of the farmer project), which provides assured income, crop insurance benefits and equipment to farmers. The scheme also grants a compensation of Rs. 2 lakh to the families of deceased farmers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"