Chief Minister D K Shivakumar at the launch of Karnataka’s interim drought relief payments at Vidhana Soudha on November 5. Photo: Karnataka Chief Minister’s Office.
Bengaluru: Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar said on Tuesday that every eligible drought-hit farmer in Karnataka would receive the full ₹5,000 in relief. He said farmers who received ₹2,000 in the first instalment would get another ₹3,000, and those who received ₹2,500 would get another ₹2,500 in the next instalment.
Later on Tuesday, opposition leader R. Ashoka questioned what he described as uneven first instalments and called for the balance to be paid immediately.
In a separate X post at 7:23 pm, Ashoka said Shivakumar had announced ₹5,000 in total drought relief and ₹2,500 for the first instalment. He alleged that some farmers’ bank accounts had been credited with only ₹1,500 or ₹2,000. He asked why the amounts differed at a time when farmers were already facing hardship.
Ashoka called the smaller payments an administrative failure. He asked the chief minister to explain why the announced amount had not reached those farmers and demanded that the outstanding relief be released immediately.
Shivakumar said Karnataka would use its own funds to raise relief above the norms of the State Disaster Response Fund and the National Disaster Response Fund for rain-fed, irrigated and perennial crops. In an earlier Kannada post, he said the state would provide a minimum of ₹5,000 for all three crop categories and that eligible farmers could receive up to ₹60,000 in input subsidy, depending on crop losses.
Shivakumar’s posts did not specify when the next instalment would be paid or explain the ₹1,500 credits alleged by Ashoka.
The state had announced the ₹5,000 relief and a ₹2,500 first instalment on November 5.
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