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Govt gears up to tackle drought in Vidarbha

With a drought-like situation looming large over Vidarbha, the Maharashtra government has declared five districts in Amravati division as drought-hit and ordered a fresh survey of crop yields in seven districts of Nagpur division.

Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh at a meeting Sunday said the crop yield in all 7,440 villages in five districts of Amravati has been below 50 per cent, while it has been only a little better in Nagpur division.

However, stating that the figures may be incorrect as some MPs, MLAs and MLCs have disagreed with the statistics, he ordered a fresh review of the crop yield.

Deshmukh also announced some relief measures, including stay on the recovery of loans and rescheduling of crop loans.

Deshmukh said the situation in Vidarbha this year was peculiar as some parts of the region received excess rainfall resulting in damage to crops, while others experienced a prolonged dry spell.

The chief minister said 600 employment guarantee scheme projects are already underway and another 1,557 would be launched soon to provide jobs to over 100,000 farmers.

The five-hour meeting was attended by Revenue Minister Ashok Chavan, Agriculture Minister Ranjit Deshmukh, and MPs, MLAs and MLCs from Vidarbha.

UNI

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