The much awaited drought relief measures for lakhs of farmers of the State are going to be leakage proof this time. The Government has made its mandatory for the beneficiaries getting assistance for crop loss and also for newer schemes under long term plan to furnish their Aadhaar number along with bank account.
The steps have been taken on the special instruction from the Centre in order to seal the pilferages existing in the system. “All the assistances under drought relief, payment for water conservation programmes and other long term schemes for the farmers etc would be credited directly to the beneficiaries’ bank accounts through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT),” said Sanjay Kumar Srivastava, State Project Officer for disaster management in Jharkhand.
All the districts of the State barring few from Santhal Pargana are reeling under acute drought this year. The State Government through various departments have initiated short, medium and long term schemes and is expected to spend Rs 28,000 crore on drought mitigation and irrigation programmes in various parts of Jharkhand over the period of time.
“For immediate relief as well as under long term planning we have conducted ‘yojna banao abhiyan’ throughout the State. Each Gram Sabha is supposed to assess intensity of drought in its area, list beneficiaries and furnish the details with the Circle Officer. It would be approved by the DC and fund with them would be released. Thus, the Gram Sabhas have been told to collect Aadhaar numbers and account numbers of the farmers necessarily for the purpose. Those who have not got their Aadhaar are told to get it soon,” said Srivastava.
A senior official of Agriculture Department said that convergence of Rural Development, Irrigation Department, Drinking Water and Sanitation etc have been done for this purpose. Jharkhand had under immediate relief received Rs 336.94 crore for drought-affected farmers from the Centre against its original demand of Rs 2,142.78 crore.
“There is considerable amount lying unspent under the State Disaster Relief Fund. At the same time, we are focusing more on convergence of the State Government Budget in which there is special provisions under the separate agriculture budget present for the first time in 2016-17. There is no dearth of fund but, at the same time, we are ensuring leakage-proof distribution among the beneficiaries, be it for dova construction, large scale plantation, building check dams or for immediate monitory relief,” said the official, adding that relief measures in a sense is banking heavily upon proper functioning of village level elected representatives with infusion of technology.