AMIT GUPTA

Ranchi, Aug. 11: The state administration will submit a memorandum to the Centre seeking assistance of around Rs 2,000 crore in Jharkhand, which is in the throes of a severe drought.

Amitabh Sinha

Monsoon showers in the last few days have almost completely wiped out the overall rainfall deficit of this season, but entire eastern India continues to reel under an abnormally dry spell and now faces a second successive year of serious drought.

New Delhi, Aug. 10: A team of central officials and experts will visit Jharkhand to assess the drought situation, Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar said in the Lok Sabha today, a day after Raj Bhavan added four names to the existing list of 12 parched districts.

Unsatisfied with the claims of the State Government that there was no drought- like situation anywhere in UP, the members of Samajwadi Party (SP) staged a walk out from the Vidhan Parishad on Tuesday. The SP leaders were not satisfied with government claims on good or satisfactory rains during the monsoons till date.

SUDHIR KUMAR MISHRA

Ranchi, Aug. 9: The water resources department has finalised a proposal to demand Rs 1,727.22 lakh from the National Calamity Relief Fund to restart 152 irrigation projects in the 12 districts that have been declared drought-hit. The aim is to restore these schemes within 60 days.

Jamshedpur, Aug. 9: The forest department has extended a helping hand to the farmers of Pipla and Bhagabandh villages in drought-hit East Singhbhum district under the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), a frontal agency fighting hunger worldwide.

Recently, the department started a lift irrigation project in both the villages covering 10 hectares of land.

In an unseemly hurry the state finance minister, Mr Asim Dasgupta, today
announced that the state government would declare eight districts
drought-affected if there is a rainfall deficit till 15 August which is the
deadline for paddy transplantation.

Jamshedpur, July 25: A parched Jharkhand can look forward to some relief in the next two days.

The Patna Meteorological Office, which monitors weather conditions in the state, has forecast widespread rainfall over Jharkhand in the next 48 hours.

BHUBANESWAR: Even as a recent report of the Central Employment guarantee council under the Ministry of Rural Development rapped the State Government for poor utilisation of fund in the flagship wage employment scheme under NREGS, there is marked improvement in the fund utilisation in the first quarter of the current financial year.

ANDHRA Pradesh chief minister K Rosaiah and his political rival TDP supremo Chandrababu Naidu are both playing messiah for the farmers of the state.

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