Agri ministry to submit Tk 1.0b programme to recoup flood loss

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FE Report
The Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) will soon submit a Tk 1.0 billion rehabilitation programme to help recoup the losses, suffered by the country's agriculture sector during two phases of flood recently.
"The second phase of flood in the country's different parts forced the Ministry to revise its rehabilitation fund," senior officials told the FE Monday.
Although the Ministry had earlier earmarked Tk 800 million for the first phase of the rehabilitation scheme, it dropped the programme mainly because of the second phase of flash flooding, official sources mentioned.
Cultivated 'aman' crop on over 1,00,000 hectares of land had been badly affected due to the second phase of flood that badly hit a number of districts including Sirajgonj, Rangpur, Kurigram, Gaibandha, Bogra, Lalmonirhat etc.
Initially, the government sanctioned Tk 650 million fund for distribution of agricultural inputs like seedlings and fertlisers among the flood-hit farmers, the officials said. Of the sanctioned amount, the Ministry of Finance had already released Tk 320 million.
Besides, the Finance Ministry told the Agriculture Ministry that the remaining amount would be released after the assessment of the actual flood-related damage to the agriculture sector, they added.
According to the initial estimate by the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), the country's agriculture sector sustained losses to the tune of Tk 23.61 billion due to the first phase of flooding.
Rejecting such estimate, the Ministry asked the DAE to scrutinise the figure on the basis of field-level statistics, a Ministry official mentioned.
The official also said, the DAE is yet to submit its revised report on the flood-related losses to the Agriculture Ministry.
Official sources, however, indicated that the actual losses could be much lower than the initial estimate.
According to the Flood Monitoring Cell, the flood totally damaged cultivated crops on nearly 3,50,000 hectares of land across the country.
Of the total, planted 'aman' and its seedlings on 1,92,756 hectares, and standing 'aush' crop on 46,513 hectares of land were completely damaged by the flood.
Although the flood had hit a total of 58 districts, the agricultural crops were badly affected in some 39 districts, a Cell official told the FE.
At the initial stage, state-run agriculture agencies had undertaken a programme for preparing 'aman' seedbeds on 500 acres of land for distributing it to the affected farmers.