Scanty rainfall in UP: Keep contingency plan ready, agri minister tells officials

Shahi asks officials to get exact status of rainfall and sowing in districts in the next two days and take steps to make seeds of alternative crops besides, fertilisers, irrigation water etc available to farmers

LUCKNOW Agriculture minister Surya Pratap Shahi directed officials to keep a contingency plan ready to deal with the situation that may worsen, if rain deficit continues in UP even as the government is expected to demand a financial package from the Centre once the exact crop losses suffered by farmers are assessed.

Officials said at least one-third of UP was very close to drought though the government might make an official declaration on drought in the affected districts only after September (Pic for representation)

Holding a department meeting on preparations to combat the drought-like situation in several districts, Shahi asked officials to compile the exact status of rainfall and sowing in districts in the next two days and take steps to make seeds of alternative crops besides, fertilisers, irrigation water etc available to farmers.

The government has already directed the departments concerned to avoid snapping power connections of farmers’ tubewells due to arrears, distribute around 30,000 solar pumps to farmers and suspend recovery of land revenue.

Officials said at least one-third of UP was very close to drought though the government might make an official declaration on drought in the affected districts only after September.

“The situation in 60 of the 350 tehsils with scanty rainfall is quite worrisome,” a revenue department official said. “Though district magistrates are still making assessment of crop losses caused by low rainfall, we guess paddy production, especially in eastern UP, may drop by 30% this year,” he pointed out.

The government, he said, might soon send a report to the Centre demanding a financial package to compensate for losses suffered by farmers once the DMs send their reports on the tehsil-wise and block-wise losses.

The rainfall data released by the agriculture department on Tuesday showed that the situation was worst in eastern UP that has received only 42.7% of the normal rainfall since June. Central UP has received 48.7% of the normal rainfall and 52.8% of the normal rains have been received in western UP. The situation is comparatively better in Bundelkhand, which has received close to 80% of normal rainfall.