LoP attacks government over delay in drought relief to farmers

Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition R Ashoka has launched a sharp attack on the Karnataka government over the delay in distributing drought relief to farmers, accusing it of neglecting the interests of the farming community despite four months having passed since the failure of the monsoon.

Questioning Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, Ashoka asked what the government had been doing all these months without collecting details of crop losses or preparing the list of eligible beneficiaries.”Has your government been sitting idle all this while? How many more excuses does the government need to delay compensation to farmers?” he asked in a post on X.

Ashoka alleged that the government was now imposing several conditions, including FRUITS software registration, Aadhaar linking, bank account details and RTC documents, forcing distressed farmers to make repeated visits to government offices. He accused the Congress government of adding to the difficulties of farmers who had already suffered crop losses instead of extending timely financial assistance.

Describing the delay as evidence of administrative negligence, Ashoka said technical problems in the software and discrepancies in documents should be resolved by the government rather than making farmers bear the burden. He alleged that the government had failed to learn lessons from irregularities in the previous distribution of drought and crop-loss compensation.Questioning whether the state treasury was empty, Ashoka demanded that the government immediately finalise the list of eligible farmers and resolve technical issues related to FRUITS and Aadhaar. He also urged the government to transfer compensation directly into farmers’ bank accounts through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).”

Compensation for their hard work and crop losses is not charity but their right,” he said, demanding that the government apologise to farmers and resign if it was unable to provide relief.

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