Bhubaneswar/Dhenkanal, Oct. 15: The state government today announced to include four more districts in the list of drought-affected areas.
In Bhubaneswar, the state's disaster management minister Bijoyshree Routray announced Balangir, Nuapada, Jharsuguda and Bargarh districts as drought affected. Yesterday, the state government had released the list of 12 districts that had suffered 33 per cent and above crop loss.
Chief minister Naveen Patnaik also announced a package of assistance for the drought-affected farmers. He announced that Rs 1,000 crore would be spent to mitigate the drought situation in the state.
The package included agriculture input subsidy for small and marginal farmers at the rate of Rs 6,800 per hectare in the rain-fed or non-irrigated areas and Rs 13,500 for areas under assured irrigation.
The other assured assistance are fresh finance for rabi crops, conversion of short term kharif loans to medium term loans, 50 per cent remission in respect of cess on land revenue, 40,000 pump sets, repair of defunct irrigation points, energisation of deep bore wells, pulses, oilseeds and vegetable mini kits.
In another development, the Congress today continued its statewide Jana Jagaran Yatra for the second consecutive day in Dhenkanal district.
All India Congress Committee in-charge B.K. Hariprasad said the government had woken up from a long slumber and announced the package of assistance for farmers to take the wind out of Congress's padyatra sail.
"The public anger against the Naveen Patnaik government is evident from the large-scale public participation in our padyatra and Naveen is definitely worried," said Hariprasad.
Opposition parties alleged that the state government was just making promises, which would never be fulfilled in the near future.
"They are just making fake promises to hoodwink the people of the state," said BJP leader Biswa Bhusan Harichandan.
The Congress in its padyatra programme took out a massive march in Angul yesterday.
"The impressive response indicates the rising support of the common people for the Congress and people's growing disenchantment with the BJD, which has failed on all fronts," said Harichandan.
Harichandan said the people were aggrieved, as they were not getting safe water to drink. The region, where several coal mines and thermal power stations are located, was reeling from power cuts for several hours.
