New Delhi, Aug 31 — Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking urgent financial assistance to address one of the worst flood disasters the state has faced in decades.
Triggered by heavy monsoon rains and the release of dam waters, the floods have devastated around 1,000 villages across seven districts — Gurdaspur, Kapurthala, Amritsar, Pathankot, Ferozepur, Fazilka and Hoshiarpur — leaving lakhs of people affected. Nearly three lakh acres of farmland, mostly paddy fields, remain submerged under floodwaters, causing massive crop losses just weeks before the harvest. The disaster has also resulted in widespread livestock deaths, severely impacting rural households dependent on dairy and animal husbandry.
In his letter, Chief Minister Mann stressed the dire financial position of Punjab. He highlighted a permanent revenue loss of Rs 49,727 crore due to the GST transition, a reduction in the Rural Development Fund and Mandi Development Fund amounting to over Rs 8,000 crore, and the cancellation of Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) projects worth Rs 828 crore. He urged the Centre to immediately release Rs 60,000 crore in pending funds owed to Punjab to help the state recover.
The Chief Minister also criticised the current compensation norms under the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF), calling them “grossly inadequate and unrealistic.” He pointed out that the input subsidy of Rs 17,000 per hectare (around Rs 6,800 per acre) falls far short of actual farmer losses. “Paying such a petty amount would be a cruel joke with farmers,” he wrote.
Mann underlined that the Punjab government has already announced an additional Rs 8,200 per acre, taking its own contribution to Rs 15,000 per acre. However, given the near-harvest stage of the crops, he demanded that affected farmers receive at least Rs 50,000 per acre in compensation.
While appealing for a revision of SDRF norms, Mann assured that the state government would continue to shoulder 25 per cent of the compensation burden as mandated, but emphasized that urgent intervention from the Centre was critical to support Punjab’s farmers and flood-hit families.
