The central government was considering to have more norms for providing relief to farmers affected by recent unseasonal rains, union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh said on Tuesday."We are considering to increase norms of the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) to compensate farmers affected by unseasonal rains," he said at a national conference on agriculture here.At the same time, Singh urged the state governments concerned to first compensate the affected farmers from their respective state disaster response funds."Expenditure for relief can be met from their response fund up to 10 percent," he said.The minister also advised the affected states to send a report on the area affected by the unseasonal rain to his ministry for assessment."Though rainfall deficit was 12 percent in the southwest monsoon period last year, overall production decline was not much, as decrease in the sowing area was a mere two percent," Singh said.
The day-long conference was organised at the National Agriculture Science Centre in the capital to review rabi crop production and assess preparedness of states for ensuing kharif crop.Rabi season begins with sowing operations in November and the crop, especially wheat, is harvested in April-May, while kharif season starts in June with sowing when monsoon begins and its crop, mainly rice, is harvested in November.Indian agriculture season is from July 1 to June 30 in the following year.The country's foodgrain production was 266 million tonnes in fiscal 2013-14.According to the ministry's second advanced estimates, production for just-concluded fiscal 2014-15 is likely to be 257 million tonnes against the target of 261 million tonnes.