Ranchi, June 22: Water resources minister Kamlesh Kumar Singh today claimed that the irrigation problems in the state would be solved to a considerable extent this year given that five major and 12 medium irrigation projects were ready to be commissioned.

Added to this, the repair of Palna water reservoir in Deoghar district, too, was almost complete.

Cooperative minister Madhu Koda added that the state government had constituted a disaster management group, which will be headed by chief minister Arjun Munda.

He added that Rs 1 lakh had been supplied to each block for ensuring drinking water supply. The blocks also received five quintals of foodgrain.

The depth of the deep borings in the rural areas had been increased from 150 feet to 200 feet.

That apart, a Rs 6.68-crore emergency calamity relief fund, too, had been created to meet the crisis situations.

Incidentally, neither the water resources minister nor the drinking water and sanitation minister was present when the House began a special debate on drought.

Water resources minister Kamlesh Kumar Singh arrived half-an-hour late while drinking water and sanitation minister Jaleshwar Mahto arrived more than an hour after the debate began.

The former was greeted by boos when he arrived though the Opposition members did not quite notice the latter?s entry into the House.

A majority of legislators, irrespective of their political affiliations, demanded special schemes for drought-prone zones and a fresh survey of groundwater level in different parts of the state.

While JD(U) member Radha Krishna Kishore slammed the government for not being able to decide how to spend the Rs 800 crore it had received for the food-for-work scheme.

JMM member Ravindra Kumar Mahto said small and marginal farmers were the worse victims. There was no yardstick for declaring an area drought-hit and neither was the government aware of the actual number of drought-hit areas, he alleged.

While pointing out that drying of crops had become a perennial problem in the Chatra-Palamau area because all major sources of water had virtually dried up, BJP member Upendra Nath Das pointed out that most tubewells in the villages were non-functional.