Pawar admits drought spectre,adds plan ready

The minister at the same time stressed that the overall situation pertaining to deficient rainfall was showing signs of improvement and added that the Centre was monitoring the situation closely and was ready to give every support to states to tide over the crisis. “The rainfall deficiency has decreased from -46% on July 1 to -27% on July 15,” Pawar said.

He admitted that there had been a substantial drop in paddy transplantation and it was a matter of concern but the overall situation of sowing of kharif crops had improved. There is improvement in the area covered under pulses,oilseeds,jowar and bajra,he said.

Pawar said no state so far had sought assistance from the Centre and underlined that his ministry was ready to send teams to assess the damage caused by deficient rainfall. “Whatever has to be done the Centre is ready to do. We are in constant touch. Alternative seeds have been provided to the states,” he said.

Rejecting demands from members that the government should declare drought in the country,Pawar said it was for the states to announce it. He said so far Manipur had declared drought in 11 districts,Jharkhand in four,Assam in 14 and Madhya Pradesh in 41 districts.

He said the situation was particularly bad in Bihar and eastern and western Uttar Pradesh,parts of Punjab,Haryana,Himachal Pradesh,Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu too have received deficient rainfall. He said 100 MW extra power had been provided to Punjab and Haryana and added that diesel would also be provided to other states.

BJP’S ORGANIC FARMING-COW LINK

BJP president Rajnath Singh on Monday tried to exploit the issue of organic farming to demand a ban on cow slaughter which was rejected by Pawar. Singh argued that since the government wanted to promote organic farming,it should ban cow slaughter to make cow dung available as manure.

Pawar rejected it stating that he could not burden farmers with the cost of maintaining their old animals. ens