Shillong, Mar 6: Incorrect bank details submitted by beneficiaries have been found to be the prime reason for farmers hit by natural calamities not getting their due compensation for years.
This was revealed in the reply to a question in the state assembly on Thursday regarding status of financial compensation to farmers affected by natural calamities in West Garo Hills district.
Only 13,004 farmers of the total 59,224 farmers affected by natural calamities in the district during 2016-19 have received their compensation so far, leaving 46,220 affected farmers still waiting for their dues.
Informing this in the assembly, minister in-charge Revenue & Disaster Management Kyrmen Shylla the state government has released around Rs 10.55 crore to West Garo Hills deputy commissioner for payment of compensation to the eligible farmers.
From the total amount, Rs 3.25 crore was released as compensation to 16,427 farmers in 2016, Rs 3.86 crore to 16,219 farmers in 2017, Rs 2.40 crore to 8719 farmers in 2018 and Rs 1.04 crore to 17,859 farmers in 2019, minister in-charge Revenue & Disaster Management Kyrmen Shylla said in his reply tabled in the assembly on Thursday.
However, a number of factors led to delay in the compensation reaching the beneficiaries.
“The main reason for the delay in disbursing compensation to the affected farmers are: most of the transactions failed due to inoperative and incorrect account details submitted by the beneficiaries, names of some beneficiaries are entered more than once in the list of affected beneficiaries and some are from the same household,” Shylla said.
He said the department is in the process of developing an online portal related to all the relief and disaster management matters to ensure timely reporting, sanction and disbursement of compensation to the affected people.
The state government has taken the initiative to disburse the fund through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) via PFMS to ensure transparency in the disbursement,” the minister added.
