Social activist Yogendra Yadav of the Swaraj Abhiyan said here on Thursday that the Centre and the State governments had failed to comply with the Supreme Court’s recent directive on drought relief, and ground assessments had revealed that universal access to food grains in drought-affected areas was not ensured.
“No State is anywhere close to implementing this critical directive for mitigation of hunger. The Centre is not willing to accept its responsibility in this respect,” said Mr. Yadav at a press conference, in which activists of various organisations participated.
“We [organisations] jointly took out “Jal-Hal” yatra [march] from Latur to Ahoba, Chambal to Bundelkhand and in parts of Telangana during the last two months. We found that drought had caused widespread distress migration, over and above the seasonal labour movement of rural population,” said Mr. Yadav.
‘Distress sale’In many States distress sale of land, cattle and other assets was high, he said. “Cattle famine in Bundelkhand has become terrible by gross neglect of fodder supply by the State, while the water famine in Marathwada has been made worse by the rise of the water mafia,” he alleged. “We have decided to carry out monitoring of relief across the 13 drought-hit States and present the report to the Supreme Court when the case comes up for hearing on August 1,” said Mr. Yadav.
