Nitish seeks Rs 23,071 crore from PM to combat drought

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today shot off a letter to the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, seeking assistance of Rs 23,071 crore to meet the financial burden caused by the ‘unprecedented drought’ situation prevailing in the State.

Mr. Kumar’s letter — which was released to the press before the Chief Minister left for New Delhi to attend the Chief Ministers’ conference convened by the Prime Minister — said that the financial requirement to deal with drought situation could go up in case the other districts also received scanty rainfall in the coming weeks.

A few days ago the Bihar Government declared 26 out of 38 districts drought-hit, affecting around 1.26 crore families with paddy coverage showing an overall shortfall of 57 per cent.

With the coverage of other main crop maize also coming down to 27.4 per cent during the current sowing season due to scanty rains, the Government might consider declaring the remaining 12 districts as drought-hit, the letter said.

“We are requesting the Centre for an allocation of Rs 23,071 crore for meeting the financial burden caused by the drought which is somewhat unprecedented in recent times,” the letter said.

Of the Rs 23,071 crore allocation sought for tackling drought, Rs 10,845 crore has been sought for employment generation under NREGA and other sectors.