Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan held a meeting with Central study team which has visited drought-hit areas of the State, on Tuesday. The Chief Minister said the State is facing severe drought this year.
The State Government is making efforts to extend all possible assistant to farmers. Assistance of Rs4,498 crore has been sought from the Centre. The team should submit its report to the Central Government at the earliest, so that assistance can be obtained.
The CM said drought has been caused in some districts due to sudden excessive rains, deficient rains and big gap between rain spells in other districts. Besides, yellow beetle disease has also destroyed soybean crops. Crops in about 44 lakh hectares in 33,000 villages have been affected. The CM said the State Government has suspended loan and electricity bill recovery from farmers. It has been decided to provide them wheat, rice and salt at the rate of Rs1 per kg and assistance for marriage of daughters. The State Government is curtailing budget under other heads by 15 per cent to assist farmers.
Chouhan said though concerned over drought situation, he is fully committed to assisting farmers. For this, Central assistance is needed. A memorandum has been sent regarding this. He urged the Central team to submit its report at the earliest. Also, the CM urged that NABARD should adopt refinancing system like past.
He also informed the team of system to deposit wheat procurement amounts directly in the bank accounts of farmers. He also suggested prescribing minimum amount of crop insurance. Besides, he also extended Diwlai greetings.
Chief Secretary Anthony DeSa said 84,000 out of 89,000 crop cutting experiments have been made in the State. Of 26,000 crop cutting exercises for paddy, 23,000 have been done. He said the Central Government has been urged to give Rs3,428 crore for input subsidy, Rs300 crore for drinking water and Rs770 crore for repayment of loans. Besides, appeal was also made for amounts of MNREGA and crop insurance.
In-charge of the Central study team Union Joint Secretary Agriculture Amitabh Gautam said three Central teams have visited 10 districts in the State, including Rewa, Satna, Sidhi Shahdol, Anuppur, Umaria, Sagar, Panna, Damoh and Katni. They held discussions with farmers and inspected crop loss. Drought has affected crops of soybean, urad, moong and paddy.
Water level in reservoirs has depleted due to which problems pertaining to drinking water and fodder may crop up in the future. The team suggested bringing diversity in crops, adopt crop cycle change and chalk out an action plan for next Kharif season. Agriculture Production Commissioner PC Meena, ACS Finance AP Shrivastava, Principal Secretary Revenue KK Singh, Principal Secretary Farmers Welfare and Agriculture Development Rajesh Rajora, officers of other departments and Central team’s members Manoj Tiwari, AK Tiwari, AK Shrivastava, AS Parmar, Vivek Kumar, U Sarangi, RG Bembal, M Choudhary and others were also present on the occasion.