VIJAYAWADA : Special Chief Secretary (Disaster Management) Ajay Jain urged the Central team, which visited drought-affected areas in the State for the past couple of days, to be liberal in assisting the State financially.
During a meeting with the Central team at the disaster management department office in Vijayawada on Friday, he explained about the drought situation during Rabi 2024
The Central team visited drought-affected areas in Nellore, Kurnool, Nandyal, Anantapur, Sri Sathya Sai and Praksam districts in the State for the past four days to study the drought intensity and its impact during the Rabi season.
Ajay Jain said that the government had declared 63 mandals in six districts as fully affected by the drought and 24 mandals partially affected by it. “The parameters adopted for declaring drought mandals were deficit rainfall than normal, more dry spells, assessment of the drought mandals through remote sensing based on soil moisture, hydrology, and crop loss of more than 33%,” he informed.
The Special Chief Secretary said that factual data of the situation at the ground-level was reported to the Centre and urged the Central team to sanction Rs 319.77 crore as immediate aid to the farmers. Further, he requested an additional 50 working days under MGNREGA in these mandals.
PMFBY CEO and Farmer Welfare department joint secretary Ritesh Chowhan said they will submit details about the crop loss due to drought to the Centre. He further assured to come to the aid of the farmers who suffered losses due to draught in the State.