The Centre has so far disbursed Rs 3662.9 crore and 81.78 lakh tonne free-of-cost grains to the drought affected states and ordered a nutrition survey to assess the impact of the ongoing relief operations.
In some cases, Centre has also agreed to give the cash component of the drought-linked relief programmes under the Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojana (SGRY).
These and many other related issues were deliberated upon on Friday when the Crisis Management Group reviewed the drought relief operations across the country.
Chaired by Drought Relief Commissioner Sudeep Banerjee, the meeting paid special attention on relief work in the nine severely affected states of Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhatisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharasthra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu.
It was noted that the movement of grains in Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu was sluggish. However, the Union Food Ministry expessed optimism that shortly sufficient stocks will be moved to districts having arrears of grains' component of wages under SGRY.
Under normal circumstances, the Centre provides the grains' component of the SGRY programmes but in view of the drought it has agreed to provide the cash component as well, norms for which are prepared by the Task Force on Drought.
{{/usCountry}}Under normal circumstances, the Centre provides the grains' component of the SGRY programmes but in view of the drought it has agreed to provide the cash component as well, norms for which are prepared by the Task Force on Drought.
{{/usCountry}}Against a planned movement of 2.25 lakh tonnes grains to Rajasthan in May, actual movement was only 1.31 lakh tonnes upto 26th of this month.
So far Rs 1,461 crores have been released to the drought affected states under Calamity Relief Fund (CRF) for 2002-03 and Rs 2,201 crore under the National Calamity Contingency Fund.