Mysuru: Even as thousands of farmers from across the State are demanding adequate compensation for crop loss, Mysuru Zilla Panchayat (ZP) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) K. Jyothi today took the District-level officials to task for tardy progress in the assessment of crop damages caused by drought and rain fury.

She was responding to a series of allegations by ZP members at the Quarterly Karnataka Development Programme [(KDP) including 20-point programme] progress review meeting held at ZP Hall in city. The meeting was chaired by ZP President Nayeema Sulthana.                  

As soon as the meeting began, ZP Agriculture and Industries Standing Committee Chairman Venkataswamy levelled serious allegations against the Agri Department officials for not visiting the fields to assess crop damages in H.D. Kote taluk. He argued that hundreds of hectares of standing paddy and other khariff crops were destroyed in both rain-fed and irrigated land in his taluk during this season, but the officials failed to visit the spot to assess the damage and submit a report to the government as it is a must to obtain compensation.

He also alleged that farmers of K.R. Nagar and other taluks in the district too suffered huge crop loss. Paddy growers of K.R. Nagar taluk suffered loss from ‘Benki Roga’ in more than 5,700 hectares of land, he said.     

Replying to the allegations, Joint Director of Agriculture Mahantheshappa said his Department officials visited the spot and assessed the damage besides taking measures to arrest the spread of “Benki Roga” to paddy crop. Even scientists from various Agri Universities visited the paddy fields to study the disease, he said. The District had suffered crop loss to the tune of Rs. 6.75 crore, he said and added that a report in this regard was submitted to the government.   

The ZP members also alleged delay in installation of bio-metric system, lack of transparency and supply of sub-substandard food to inmates of Social Welfare Department-run Hostels.

To this, District Social Welfare Officer Bindya pointed out that the Department has taken all measures for installation of biometric units at all the hostels and assured to look into other complaints too.

When ZP Vice-President Nataraj complained about scarcity of doctors and other medical staff at Mugur and Talakad Community Health Centres in T. Narasipur,  Taluk Health Officer Dr. Prasad said that District Health and Family Welfare Department had taken all measures to fill vacant posts by outsourcing and on contract basis.  

On the complaints of water-logging around the Public Health Centre at Madapura village in T. Narasipur taluk, the ZP CEO took the engineer concerned to task for constructing a Health Centre at such a spot and asked him to fix the problem immediately.

School drop-outs

The ZP CEO instructed the Education Department officials to complete the ongoing door-to-door survey of school drop-outs besides finding the exact causes for the same.