Bihar declares 96 blocks in 11 districts as drought hit

A sum of ₹500 crore has been sanctioned from the state contingency fund as special assistance to the families of 7,841 revenue villages and attached tolas, a top official said.

As many as 937 panchayats in 96 blocks of 11 districts in Bihar were declared drought-hit by the state cabinet at its meeting on Thursday.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar chairs a meeting on rainfall situation in Bihar on Thursday. (Santosh Kumar/HT Photo)

Accordingly, a sum of ₹500 crore has been sanctioned from the state contingency fund as special assistance to the families of 7,841 revenue villages and attached tolas, a top official said.

The cabinet also gave its nod to enhance dearness allowance (DA) by 4% to all its serving staff and pensioners. The state will have to incur a recurring cost ₹863 crore on payment of the increased DA, which would be brought into effect from July 1 this year.

Briefing reporters after the meeting, additional chief secretary (ACS), cabinet, S Siddharth said the officers concerned have been asked to identify families affected due to the drought caused by scanty rain and disburse the financial assistance of ₹3,500 to each of them. “Along with it, the cabinet also approved to proposal to survey the areas that suffered due to excessive rains and flooding in certain areas. The affected would be granted assistance by way of agriculture input subsidy,” the ACS said.

He said that the cabinet also approved the proposal to offer diesel subsidy to more farmers owing to paucity of rains and an additional sum of ₹100 crore has been released from the contingency fund to disburse the subsidy amount.

The part of the districts declare drought-hit are Jehanabad, Gaya, Aurangabad, Sheikhpura, Nawada, Munger, Lakhisarai, Bhagalpur, Banka, Jamui and Nalanda.

In another important decision, the state government has authorised the executive officers of panchayat samitis and zila parishad to accord administrative sanctions to projects costing up to ₹30 lakh and ₹1 crore in their respective jurisdiction. Earlier, the power to sanction schemes was vested with the deputy development commissioners (DDCs) and the block development officers (BDOs), owing to the delay in panchayat elections.

Though the state government had released more than ₹3,200 crore to panchayats, the elected bodies weren’t able to plan and execute development projects owing to absence of authorisation.

The state cabinet also sanctioned creation of more than 2400 posts in various departments and extended the service contract of 3,953 personnel of special auxiliary police (SAP). Retired army personnel join the SAP to service the state police.

A total of 21 proposals of different departments were approved by the cabinet chaired by chief minister Nitish Kumar in consultation with the ministers concerned.