MANISH GUPTA
Ranchi, Sept 12: Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Monday instructed the state officials to ensure that there is no shortage of food grains, drinking water and animal feed in the situation like drought at a meeting of the state disaster management department.
Soren also directed all the departments to make a coordinated plan for drought relief measures worth in the range of Rs 2,000 crore to Rs 2,500 crore. One lakh new wells and one lakh ponds will be built across the state, the state said in a statement.
To provide relief to the farmers who are facing the impact of deficit rainfall, it was also decided to remove the ban on raw works under job guarantee scheme MNREGA, and five new schemes will be started in every village to increase man-days of work and jobs.
Soren, in the high-level meeting on drought, reviewed the situation of rainfall and sowing of crops in the state. The government has intensified preparations to provide relief to the farmers, livestock farmers, labourers and villagers from drought.
“There should be no shortage of food grains, drinking water and animal feed in this drought-like situation. Keeping this in mind, schemes should be made and their monitoring should be done with better implementation,” the Chief Minister said.
He asked the departments to make plans in coordination and prepare an overall plan worth Rs 2,000 crore to Rs 2,500 crore to deal with the drought-like situation. He also directed to do geo-tagging of all the schemes.
One lakh new wells and one lakh ponds would be constructed in the entire state. Along with this, handpumps and check dams will be repaired on a war footing. Soren directed to remove the ban on kutcha (raw) works under MGNREGA.
He asked to ensure distribution of pension among the beneficiaries by fifth of every month. On this occasion, the officials said that there are 31 lakh pensioners in the state and 8 lakh new applications have been received for sanction of pension.
Soren said that food security is the top priority of the government and people should not have shortage of food grains. He asked the officials to sanction five lakh new ration cards at the earliest. He said if there is a drinking water crisis due to drought, then make arrangements to maintain normal drinking water supply through tankers or other means.
Officials said that according to the rainfall situation in the state till September 9, seven districts have received normal, 15 districts below normal and two districts have received very little rain. As a result of less rainfall, the sowing time of paddy and other crops has been significantly less than the target.
