The Cabinet has cleared a memorandum to be sent to the Centre for its approval seeking various assistances to deal with prevailing drought condition in the State. The memorandum discussed in the meeting on Tuesday has requested the Centre to dispatch its team of experts to assess ground reality and recommend for assistance to be provided to the State.
“The State has seen failure of monsoon and its early retreat in the month of August and September. Based on the loss having taken place to the crops, the State has been announced drought-hit.
The assessment is based on depletion of groundwater, fall in water level of water bodies, shortage of grains and fodder and a memorandum requesting assistance from the Centre has been prepared. Also, the Cabinet okayed expenditures to be done from the NDRF
and SDRF funds for the purpose,” said Cabinet Secretary NN Pandey.
He also added that following the memo, the Centre would send several teams that would visit drought affected parts of the State to evaluate damage to crops and other parameters to reach to any conclusion regarding assistance.
Also, the Cabinet unified MlA Fund and CM Development Fund. “Now out of `3 crore meant as MlA
Fund, `50 lakh has to earmarked for building toilets and `75 lakh for lok Jal Samridhi schemes while rest money would be utilised as per the directive set for other developmental schemes,” said the Secretary.
The Cabinet, at the same time, also okayed a proposal to convene Winter Session of the Assembly starting from December 15. The House would function in six seating, i.e. on December 15, 16, 17, 18, 21 and on 22.
The Cabinet also decided that 50,000 women milk producers belonging to BPl families would be given 90 per cent grant for purchasing milching cows in two phases between 2015-16 to 2020-21. Total Rs 582 crores have been allocated for the scheme of which Rs 69.58 crore has been released for this FY. “The remaining 10 per cent of the cost of the cows would be given by Jharkhand Milk Federation through a corpus fund. Milk would be sold back to the Federation,” said Pandey.
Aimed to check crime against wildlife, the Cabinet has decided to setup a cell under the Forest Department during 2015-16. The cell can posses secret information regarding the crime, ensure foot patrolling in assistance with locals and run awareness drives for fringe area setters and schools kinds. Officials and staffs of the cell would be trained for their capacity building for the purpose.