Handling the drought situation seems to becoming bad to worse for the Centre as the States continue to add more districts under the drought-affected list. For instance, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, which already have many areas reeling under draught like situation, have recently added new districts in the list.
Fearing adverse impact on agriculture operations in these areas, which is likely to increase demand for wage employment on public works, the Centre has asked the two States to allow 50 more days under rural job scheme — Mahatama Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.
A senior official from the Union Rural Development Ministry said the Madhya Pradesh Government has recently announced additional 127 tehsils of 23 districts as drought-affected in addition to the l4l tehsils in 22 districts announced earlier, under relevant State regulations. These districts are Rajgarh, Bhopal, Ujjain, Neemuch, Vidisha, Dewas, Chindwara, Harda, Betul, Guna, Ratlam, Chinddwara among a few others. The State will need additional Rs764 crore for provding additional rural jobs in these areas.
Similarly, Maharashtra has already declared 15,747 villages of 12,183 gram panchyats in 21 districts as drought-affected. Nashik, Dhule, Nandurbar, Jalgaon, Ahmednagar, Pune, Satara, Sangli, Akola, Yavatmal, Buldhana, Aurangabad, Jalna, Parbhani, Hingoli, Nandede, Beed and latur among others are affected by drought, the official added.
According to the official, so far, 302 districts out of 640 in nearly 18 States in the country have experienced rainfall that came in at least 20 per cent below normal. Of these, 302 districts, nearly 192 districts from nine States have already sought drought relief from the Central Government.
The rural job scheme guarantees 100 days of unskilled work a year to every household in rural areas. The demand for job has increased in view of poor or nil rainfall in several States in the country, prompting the Rural Development Ministry to seek more fund from the Finance Ministry to fund the flagship scheme.
The official said most States have used up more than 95 % of the funds released to them so far, while 12 States are yet to pay to their MNREGA workers. These States include AP, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, HP, Kerala, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Sikkim and UP.