Calcutta High Court on Wednesday admitted a public interest litigation challenging the validity of the Duare Tran scheme undertaken by the state government to compensate those affected by Cyclone Yaas.

The petitioner, Left economist Prasenjit Bose, claimed that the government had fixed the quantum of compensation without assessing the quantum of loss incurred by the farmers.

A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal and Justice Arijit Banerjee fixed the matter for hearing on August 27 and asked the state authorities to file an affidavit stating its views with regard to the contentions made by the petitioner.

The petition claimed the compensation — ranging between Rs 1,000 and Rs 2,500 — had been fixed arbitrarily and quantum of compensation was fixed without conducting any survey to estimate the extent of crop losses in the cyclone.

“The eligibility criteria have been left unspecified; it is unclear in the case of sharecropping whether it is the land owner or the tenant farmer, who is entitled to receive the compensation. No separate provision for compensation has been made for unregistered sharecroppers cultivating lands on verbal lease,” the petition stated.

The petitioner claimed that the scheme failed to asses the quantum of actual crop losses in respect of individual applications and fixed a uniform rate of compensation for all crops. “It is inconceivable that only one type of crop was being cultivated on the 2.21 lakh hectares which have been reportedly damaged in the cyclone,” the petitioner said.

The petitioner also claimed that actually the farmers incurred loss because of infiltration of saline water in farm land.

“The Duare Tran scheme has totally ignored the cost of pumping out saline water and making the inundated lands fit for cultivation. In many areas, this cost is likely to exceed the loss of crops due to the cyclonic storm,” the petitioner stated

The petitioner sought a fresh, separate and enhanced scheme for compensating the affected farmers.

When asked, a state panel lawyer said that copy of the petition has not been scanned yet. “Compensation for affected farmers is an administrative issue. How can judiciary interfere in the issue,” the lawyer said

He also asked how the petitioner was affected by the government decision.