Karnataka government to seek Rs 6,000 crore as drought relief from Centre

With the state suffering crop losses on an estimated 42 lakh hectares due to drought, Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda said on Tuesday that the state government will submit a memorandum to the union government seeking crop loss compensation to the tune of Rs 5,000 crore to Rs 6,000 crore, as per the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) norms.

The state government has also decided to include “green drought” nomenclature in its memorandum to highlight the state receiving untimely rains, due to which a couple of taluks will show in the satellite image as taluks with green cover. But this is misleading when it is compared with ground realities.

Memo to Centre

Gowda told reporters that the state government has already declared drought in 195 taluks and a memorandum is being drafted at the moment, which will be discussed in the next Cabinet meeting, before forwarding it to the Centre.

“Of the 195 taluks, 161 are facing severe drought and also qualify under the new drought norms set by the Centre. Though there is drought in the remaining 34 taluks, they do not qualify as ‘drought-prone’. Despite this, we have declared the 195 taluks as drought hit,” he explained.

The minister underscored that the drought scenario in the state’s remaining 41 taluks is no different from 34 taluks, but they do not qualify under the new drought rules. “We have one more chance of declaring drought after assessing facts under the new norms till October last week,” he said.

Second list soon

“After assessing the severity of drought, the state government will announce the second list of drought too,” the minister said.

Allaying fears of shortage of fodder and drinking water, the Revenue minister noted that at present, there is no shortage of funds to take up supply of drinking water in the state.

“The government has already credited Rs 1 crore each in the accounts of Zilla Panchayat chief executive officers (CEOs), while there is Rs 462 crore in the accounts of deputy commissioners (DCs) already. They have been directed to utilise these funds to supply drinking water,” he said.

In response to a question, Gowda said there was no shortage of fodder at the moment and wherever water is available, the government was supplying seeds and  encouraging farmers to grow fodder. The state has released Rs 20 crore for this already, he added.