Drought is here but no need to panic: PM

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday said there is no need to panic over the drought situation in many parts of India as the government has "a better understanding of how to handle a crisis like this".

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday said there is no need to panic over the drought situation in many parts of India as the government has "a better understanding of how to handle a crisis like this".

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The Prime Minister was speaking at a special session devoted to the drought situation during a chief ministers conference on internal security.

"We have faced problems like this before and now there is much greater elbow room to deal with this drought than in the past," he said, adding there were adequate stocks of wheat and rice in godowns.

"Working collectively, pragmatic and practical solutions can be found while alerting against sapping the nation's self confidence," he said.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said that a group of ministers will meet on a regular basis on the issue. The finance minister said that the ground reality was that the drought has set in and the government sponsored National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREGA) scheme could be extended for drought relief purposes.