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Indian Government to Set Up Panel to Tackle Drought
Prolonged drought in various parts of India has brought to attention of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who has directed to set up a management group to coordinate efforts to deal with the drought specially in rural areas.
The Times of India reported on Monday that the group, to be headed by a cabinet secretary, would meet every 15 days and assess relief measures taken by all drought-hit state governments and coordinate with central ministries to assist the affected areas.
It will comprise secretaries of the ministries of agriculture, rural development, food, women and child development, railways and drinking water supply, the daily said.
The group would focus on strengthening programs relating to vulnerable sections like preschool and school-going children, women, and the aged and the destitute in drought-stricken areas.
Droughts in some areas of the country were unprecedented in the past year with big drop in agricultural output, dead of animals and trees, and tens of thousands in rural areas depending on food provided by the government.
In the seriously hit west state of Rajasthen, which has four national parks, 25 sanctuaries and over 32 reserved areas for wildlife, leopards, tigers and other animals frequently intrude into residential areas searching for waters.
Senior officials in charge of forest reservation in the state said there was terrible shortage of water in many districts of the state and things would get worse after the winter was over.
The drought, the third consecutive one in the state, has forced animals to leave the forest in search of water with many died of thirst, they said.
However, there is no official statistics of the number of people affected and the Indian government said the situation in many areas were not clear.
Last year, which saw more rain while some water left over from the previous year, water shortage in the stricken areas was not as severe as now, and drinking water problem was limited mostly to western Rajasthan.
The problem is now as acute in eastern and southern Rajasthan, particularly Udaipur and Jaipur.
Rainfall was only 34.2 centimeters this year in Jaipur, which usually receives 70 centimeters annually while water level of the Ramgarh dam, a major source of drinking water for the state capital, has now reduced to 25 feet from 40 feet last year. It was around 60 feet mark once.
In the neighboring state of Maharashtra, as many as 17,000 villages were severely hit by the drought which led crop loss by over 50 percent in most of the affected villages.
The central government in New Delhi has asked the local authorities to strengthen the public distribution system in the affected districts and all affected states to maintain a website on the internet which should provide all information on the extent of drought conditions and the efforts made to provide relief to the affected.
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