Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], November 3 (ANI): Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister and Revenue Minister G Parameshwara has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Union Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, seeking urgent intervention for the early approval and release of Central drought assistance amounting to Rs 22,400.58 crore to the state.
In separate letters dated November 2, Parameshwara communicated Karnataka’s revised cumulative drought-relief requirement of Rs 22,400.58 crore and sought appointments with the three Union leaders to personally present the state’s memorandum and explain the extent of the agricultural crisis.
Highlighting the severity of the drought, he said 226 taluks across Karnataka had been affected, with crops spread over 57.93 lakh hectares suffering extensive damage. The estimated economic losses have reached Rs 62,481.88 crore, placing lakhs of farming families, particularly small and marginal farmers, under severe financial distress.
Parameshwara noted that the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, through a notification dated October 26, 2026, had revised the assistance norms under the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) and National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) for the period 2026-27 to 2030-31.
Following the revision, Karnataka’s requirement towards crop-loss input subsidy increased from Rs 6,128.70 crore to Rs 7,943.55 crore, an enhancement of Rs 1,814.85 crore. Consequently, the state’s total cumulative requirement increased from Rs 20,585.73 crore to Rs 22,400.58 crore, while all other components of the previously submitted memorandum remained unchanged.
While appreciating the Centre’s decision to revise the assistance norms, the Deputy Chief Minister expressed concern that the enhanced rates remained inadequate in view of rising cultivation costs, increasing climatic disasters and the financial vulnerabilities faced by farmers.
He pointed out that the revised assistance rates of Rs 11,000 per hectare for rainfed crops, Rs 22,000 for irrigated crops and Rs 30,000 for perennial crops did not adequately reflect farmers’ actual expenditure on seeds, fertilisers, agricultural labour, irrigation and other essential inputs.
“Our farmers cannot be expected to confront the economic realities of 2026 with a relief framework that does not adequately recognise the true cost of cultivation and the magnitude of their losses,” Parameshwara stated in his letters.
He emphasised that disaster assistance should provide meaningful financial support to help farmers recover from losses, restore their livelihoods and resume cultivation.
Raising concerns over the continued reliance on the Agriculture Census 2015-16 to determine eligibility for disaster assistance, Parameshwara said decade-old landholding data did not adequately reflect current agricultural realities and could deprive eligible small and marginal farmers of assistance.
He urged the Centre to consider Karnataka’s FRUITS database as a more contemporary and verified mechanism for identifying beneficiaries.
Calling for a comprehensive review of the existing disaster-assistance framework, he stressed the need to account for realistic cultivation costs, updated landholding records, stronger livelihood protection and financial assistance commensurate with the increasing intensity of climatic disasters.
Referring to India’s ambition of becoming a developed nation by 2047, Parameshwara said, “A Viksit Bharat cannot be built upon an agricultural economy in which one failed monsoon can wipe away years of hard work, exhaust a family’s savings and push a generation of cultivators into uncertainty.”
Parameshwara has urged the Prime Minister and the concerned Union Ministers to take note of Karnataka’s revised requirement, expedite the appraisal of its claim and ensure the early approval and release of admissible financial assistance.
Emphasising that farmers’ welfare transcends political and administrative boundaries, he called for greater cooperation between the Centre and the state government in the spirit of cooperative federalism.
“The true measure of our nation’s progress is not merely how much our farmers produce in a good year, but how firmly we stand beside them in a year of adversity,” he said.
Reiterating his appeal, Parameshwara said Karnataka’s farming families needed timely financial assistance and a fair disaster-relief framework to recover from the drought. (ANI)
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