Karnataka Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda.
Credit: DH Photo
Bengaluru: Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda on Saturday wrote to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman seeking her time to discuss the prevalent drought situation in the state. His letter comes even as the state government is awaiting drought relief from the Centre for losses suffered during this monsoon season.
“I along with some of my Cabinet colleagues who are also the members of the Cabinet Sub- Committee on Disaster Management kindly seek your time, at your earliest convenience to present the Kharif Drought Memorandum-2023 and discuss these concerns in detail so that we can appraise you personally of the prevailing severe drought situation in the State...” Gowda wrote in his letter.
He also pointed out some concerns about the NDRF assistance. “The government relies on an eight-year-old agriculture census data for allocating input subsidy for crop loss,” he said, detailing one of the several concerns. If not tweaked in favour of farmers, the NDRF parameters will adversely impact more than 62 lakh small and marginal farmers, he pointed out.
Seeking the minister’s intervention in ensuring drought relief for the state at the earliest, he brought to her notice that Karnataka had
already submitted the Kharif Drought Memorandum-2023 and a Supplementary and an Additional Drought Memorandum seeking financial assistance of Rs 18,171 crore from NDRF.