Bengaluru: Expressing its reservation over the revised manual of the Centre for providing assistance for drought relief, the state government has asked the Centre to revise its manual.
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said the state had carefully studied the revised manual for drought management 2016 and made some suggestions.
The Centre should incorporate the changes, so that genuinely affected farmers can avail input subsidy for crop loss from National Disaster Relief Fund(NDRF), he said.
The letter stated that some parameters for declaration of drought and eligibility for assistance had been changed, which would make it difficult for the state government to declare taluks with significant crop loss as severely drought affected.
This would drastically reduce the Central assistance in future, which would increase the hardship of farmers.
During the past 16 years, parts of Karnataka have faced drought for almost 13 years.
During such periods, the Centre, through NDRF has been helping farmers. Insufficiency of funds had forced the state government to spend significant additional amounts on relief measures.
Unless the entire taluk is drought affected, farmers cannot avail assistance, which would put people in hardship, Siddaramaiah added in the letter.
