A recent survey of the same by the commissioner of Bareilly division, Sanyukta Samaddar, claims that the damage to crops in Pilibhit district is around Rs 4.5 crore.

Farmers are now demanding a fresh survey to assess the losses.

A farmer leader said, “We have incurred heavy loss due to the incessant rainfall. If the state government had been fair enough in its intentions, the manual survey of the damage would not have been conducted.”

He slammed the state government for its promptness in satellite monitoring of crop residues’ burning but lack of use of technology in assessing the damage to crops.

It is noteworthy that more than 1,300 villages across 18 districts have been affected by floods in UP due to incessant rainfall this month.

The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) has called a meeting with farmers at Neuria town in Pilibhit on October 28 to raise this issue.

RLD leader Manjit Singh said, “In Pilibhit, the paddy crops have been cultivated in an area of 1.35 lakh hectares this year. The farmers normally harvest at least 50 quintals of paddy per hectare meaning thereby that the total produce would have been on par with 67,50,000 quintals if the weather conditions had been normal. If the average damage to crop is assessed at merely 7 per cent, although the actual loss was much higher, it comes to 47,200 quintals of paddy which is valued at Rs 96.39 crore at the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 2,040. The damage to other crops, including the sugarcane is an additional loss to farmers.”