B. Nagendra, Minister for Youth Empowerment and Sports and in-charge of Ballari district, said that his government was committed to pay compensation to all farmers who have lost their crops in the drought.
“Those farmers who have sowed seeds and suffered losses owing to the drought will be compensated. The officials in the Departments of Agriculture, Horticulture and Revenue, are working on it,” Mr. Nagendra said after visiting drought-hit red-gram (tur), maize, sajje (pearl millet), ragi (finger millet) fields at Halakundi, Mincheri, Sanjivarayanakote and other villages in Ballari taluk on Saturday.
“The standing crops are green as the fields received some rains in the past two months. The red-gram is supposed to start pod setting at this time. However, it failed owing to the lack of moisture in the soil. The red-gram crop struggles to remain green to survive without a pod setting. The farmers would not get any yield this year,” K. Mallikarjun, Joint Director of Agriculture, told the minister at a red-gram field in Halakundi village.
