Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad   

Krishna delta mandals taken off drought list

By Our Special Correspondent

Hyderabad Oct. 22. The Government has removed the entire Krishna delta, consisting of 55 mandals, from the list of drought-hit areas. The action followed a high-level drought review by the Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, here on Tuesday.

The Commissioner for Relief, D. C. Rosaiah, explained to reporters later the deletion followed improved water availability due to the recent rain. With this, the number of declared drought-hit mandals plummets from 925 to 870. The rain did not benefit the crops in a big way as was generally presumed, but there was relief on the drinking water and fodder fronts. It was difficult to estimate crop prospects as yield assessment was not possible until after harvest.

At the instance of the Chief Minister, it was decided to continue "on a war-footing'' the drought mitigation action plan which was also covering mobilisation of fodder from surplus areas to deficit ones. Right now, fodder was being collected in Guntur, East and West Godavari districts for being transported to deficit areas like Anantapur and Chittoor. Initially, the collection would be of the order of 500 tonnes. (The Railway Board has agreed to provide extra wagons for the purpose and the first train will move out "shortly'' from the Bikkavolu and Bhimavaram platforms in West Godavari district). The Agriculture Department supplied blackgram and greengram seed on subsidy to the farmers in the scarcity districts.

The Relief Commissioner later conveyed to Collectors of drought-hit areas the CM's instructions to complete all the works under progress under the Food-for-work programme, using the 3 lakh tonnes of rice recently released by the Centre. In non-drought areas, such works could be completed with 2.27 lakh tonnes available under SJRY.

The State suffered a deficit rainfall of 34 per cent under the South-West monsoon ( 411.8 mm against a normal of 624 mm). However, it was 5 per cent surplus till last week-end of the North-East monsoon ( 105 mm so far against a normal of 88.7 mm).

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• Krishna delta mandals taken off drought list

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