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Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Wednesday urged Deputy Prime Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani to immediately release 500,000 tonnes of free rice from the central reserves for taking up employment generation works for agricultural labourers in drought-affected areas of Andhra Pradesh.
In a letter, the chief minister told Advani that the drought in Andhra Pradesh this year was very severe.
Incidentally, this is the first time Naidu has sought the deputy prime minister's intervention on the issue after his repeated pleas to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, through letters and personal meetings, failed to evoke any response in the last three months.
"We were hoping that the southwest monsoon would help the state at least in September 2002," Naidu said in the letter. "These hopes were belied. As against 625mm normal rainfall during southwest monsoon, only 412mm rainfall was received this year. This has resulted in the increase in number of mandals [blocks] affected by rainfall deficiency to 933 out of 1,126 in the state as on September 30, 2002."
Except for the reservoirs in the Godavari belt, all other irrigation projects in the Krishna and Pennar basins have gone dry, affecting all the areas under these projects. This has affected 11.8 million agricultural labourers who are deprived of employment. All these labourers need to be provided employment till the next kharif season in 2003, Naidu said.
The chief minister informed Advani that in keeping with the severe drought situation, the state has requested the Centre to also extend monetary assistance of Rs 12.11 billion (approximately US $249.70 million) and 2.5 million tonnes of free rice for taking up employment generation works on a war footing for all affected agricultural labourers.
He pointed out that the state had been allotted 3.15 million tonnes of free rice under the 'food for work' programme for drought relief works between August 2001 and September 2002. Of this, 3.03 million tonnes have already been lifted and 501,000 workers have been employed out of 566,000 workers grounded, generating 313.5 million mandays.
The balance 115,000 tonnes of rice will be exhausted in another week's time as payment has to be made for all the grounded works against the pending bills.
Naidu said that there would then be no rice at the state government's disposal for taking up further employment generation works for all affected agricultural labourers. Hence he sought the allotment of 500,000 tonnes of free rice immediately.
Earlier in the day, Naidu reviewed the relief measures taken up in the drought-affected areas in the state. Works relating to provision of drinking water in rural and urban areas, employment generation, supply of seeds to farmers, and positioning of fodder came up for review at the high-level meeting.
While the government has allotted Rs 718.5 million (US $14.81 million) for the provision of drinking water in rural areas, another Rs 349.5 million (US $7.21 million) have been released to urban areas for supply of water. Nine municipalities have been identified as having scarce water resources and another 53 are expected to face severe water shortage.
The agriculture department has taken up implementation of a contingency plan for sowing of dry crops in 975,000 hectares. An amount of Rs 837.5 million (US $17.27 million) has been released towards seeds and inputs supply.
State Relief Commissioner D C Rosaiah said an amount of Rs 2.05 billion (US $42.27 million) has been released to the districts in the current financial year for meeting the drought situation.
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