The Chhattisgarh Cabinet under chairmanship of Chief Minister Raman Singh on Tuesday decided to send a proposal to the Centre for declaring 93 Tehsils of 20 districts as ‘drought affected’.
The Cabinet in its more than three hours meeting also took the decision to provide job avenues to the people of the drought affected Tehsils on a war footing here. The Cabinet while displaying solidarity with farmers decided not to hold the ‘Rajyotsava’ event in the State and would instead hold only the ceremony to confer state-level awards.
Primary analysis has put the loss of Kharif crop in the affected regions to be atleast 50 per cent, it was informed in the meeting. The Cabinet also decided to provide water for irrigation to farmers on the recommendation of the Water Utility Committees from the reservoirs and dams which have sufficient water levels.
The meeting also decided to release water from Gangrel dam considering availability of 101 million cubic meters of water in the dam for irrigation purposes. The dam gates were opened immediately after the decision was taken in the meeting.
The apart, the Cabinet also decided to reserve water for drinking purposes. It may be recalled that Chief Minister Raman Singh during his first regular Radio Programme titled ‘Raman Ke Goth’ had told farmers that there is nothing to worry as the State Cabinet will take a decision to provide relief to them on September 15 (Wednesday).