Chennai: After having declared all districts drought-hit, Tamil Nadu on Monday sought a whooping Rs 39,565 crores for providing relief to farmers affected due to agrarian crisis in the state arguing that it does not have sufficient funds to meet the challenge.
In a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which was submitted at his office in person by senior officials, Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam said his government has responsibility to ensure adequate fodder availability, protection of cattle to be taken up on a war footing and employment generation programmes.
Mr Panneerselvam also asked the Union Government to release Rs 1,000 crore immediately for relief works and also asked the Prime Minister to depute a Central team to study the extensive damage caused to crops and to take stock of drinking water scarcity.
The Chief Minister said the state received only 168.3 mm of rainfall during Northeast monsoon as against the normal rainfall of 440.4 mm - a deficit of 62 per cent - and all 32 districts received rainfall that has been scanty or deficient and the range is from 35 per cent to 81 per cent.
Mr Panneerselvam had on January 10 announced Tamil Nadu as drought-hit and said that he would knock at the doors of the Union Government for financial assistance.
Contending that the drought situation in Tamil Nadu has been exacerbated by the non-release of water by Karnataka, the Chief Minister said the neighbouring state had released only 66.5 tmcft of water as against the total quantum of 179 tmcft water.
“As a result, the storage in Mettur Dam, the main reservoir that serves the Cauvery Delta, was grossly insufficient to save even a single paddy crop in the Cauvery Basin of Tamil Nadu,” he said in the memorandum.
High-level committees concluded that in 87 per cent of the area, the extent of damage is estimated to be more than 50 per cent indicating that the drought is ‘severe’, the CM said, adding that the situation is likely to worsen in the ensuing months.
“As against the total storage capacity of 198.384 TMC ft. in 15 major irrigation reservoirs in the State, the water available as on December 31, 2016 is only 25.742 TMC ft -- 13% as against a storage of 126.233 TMC ft. (64%) on the same day in 2015," he told the PM.
