Andhra Pradesh will request a Central assistance of Rs 3,006 crore towards drought relief according to the revised norms, the Chief Minister, Mr N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, has said.
While seeking liberal assistance, the Chief Minister told a nine-member Central team that the State would send a revised request soon. The team had visited the affected districts and met the Chief Minister and various Government officials today at the Secretariat.
He also said the State Government sought Rs 120 a quintal as bonus towards MSP for foodgrains.
In a detailed memorandum submitted to the Union Government on January 13. the State had requested for Central Assistance from National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) amounting to Rs 2,584.42 crore.
In view of the adverse seasonal conditions, 876 mandals (covering 22 out of 23 districts) have been declared as drought affected by the Government.
Around 51.53 lakh farmers were affected in these mandals, including 48.53 lakh small/marginal farmers out of a total of 100.56 lakh.
The total production loss of agriculture crops is estimated as 3.01 million tonnes valued at Rs 5,746.78 crore.
The Central team, which toured the districts, cautioned that drinking water will be a problem particularly in the coming summer.
Fodder and cattle camps will also be areas of concern, they said.
Crop damage
The team said a very comprehensive assessment of the crop damage has been done. They found that foodgrains prices seem to be very stable in spite of the drought and other natural calamities. This, they said, is because of the well-managed PDS system that is in vogue in the State whereby poor and low income people were getting rice at Re 1/kg.
“Even when we went to the mandis, we found the prices there are not fluctuating, even open market prices seems to be stable,” they said.
The State Revenue Minister, Mr N. Raghuveera Reddy, said that a fool-proof online transfer of cash is in vogue in the State as far as relief measures were concerned. He cited the instance of Anantapur district where Rs 245 crore of input subsidy was transferred online to the accounts of 4.60 lakh farmers on a pilot basis.