Financial assistance from the national disaster relief fund to the tune of `70.22 crore has been approved by the Central Government for the drought affected Uttarakhand State. This decision was taken at the meeting of a high level committee headed by the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh held in the national capital on Thursday to deliberate on the subject of the Central Assistance to Uttarakhand affected by drought, according to government sources.
The committee examined the proposal based on the report prepared by the Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) which had visited the state affected by severe drought. The high level committee approved the assistance from the National Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF) in respect of Uttarakhand to the tune of `70.22 crore.
The Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Radha Mohan Singh, Union Home Secretary, Rajiv Mehrishi and senior officers of the ministries of Home, Finance and Agriculture attended the meeting.
It is pertinent to mention here that though the monsoon season in Uttarakhand during the past few years has been marked by reported incidence of extreme weather events like cloudburst, factors like the impact of climate change being exacerbated by environmental damage caused by human activities has resulted in a drastic change in the winter snow and rainfall patterns apart from the changes seen in the rainfall pattern during the monsoon season. There are places in the state which used to experience snowfall during the winter every year, which have now been without any snowfall for some years. Observers opine that extreme climatic phenomena appear to be taking place in the State at an increased frequency. The 2013 disaster which followed heavy rain in Kedarnath is one such example of the changing climate because the high altitude region used to receive snowfall and not rainfall. The deficient rainfall and snow in various parts of the State in the previous year and this year has hit farmers and cultivators of fruits especially apple orchard owners hard, affecting both their yield and choice of their source of income. It now remains to be seen whether the central assistance is put to effective use to alleviate at least some of the damage resulting from drought.