Centre closely monitoring water crisis, says Radha Mohan Singh

After facing heat from Opposition over drought relief measures, the Centre has come out with latest facts and figures to counter the charges. 

According to Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh, the Centre has already released first installment of Rs 2,551 crore for 10 drought affected states from State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), which is meant to be spent for water supply in animal camps or for fodder, hand pump repairing, ring wells, etc.

“The central government has got around 7.5 lakh hand pumps repaired in these area and 15,345 settlements were provided water through tankers. The Centre has also made available around 60,000 bore wells by way of putting new ones as well as taking on rent from private parties,” said Singh while spelling out the works done by Modi government to address water crisis issue. In the current fiscal, the states have got Rs 819.67 crore as the first installment from ARDWP and along with it, the states have been told to use flexi fund too to address the crisis.

“In the five years prior to Prime Minister Narendra Modi led NDA government coming into power, the total fund transferred in SDRF was Rs 33,580 crore whereas the same has increased to Rs 61,219 crore for the next five years. In this fiscal, an amount of Rs 2,551 crore has already been released for 10 drought hit states from this corpus,” said Singh.

Reiterating PM Modi’s commitment towards welfare of poor, Singh said, “The Modi government considers that national calamity in any part of the country belongs to whole country and so it has changed the attitude of sending help to states in such situations. With this kind of federal philosophy, the Centre has released Rs 9,000 crore more that what states had demanded to cope up with natural disasters in 2014-15.”

Blaming the ousted UPA government for not helping affected states during crisis, Singh said, “The previous UPA government had released only Rs 42,000 crore in four years from 2010-14 in response to the demands of Rs 1 lakh crore made by different state governments. In 2015-16, the Modi government released Rs 13,773.34 crore towards National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) for states.”

Citing the example of Uttar Pradesh, the minister said, “In case of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav-ruled state, just Rs 785 crore was sanctioned to help it in 2009-10 and 2013-14, whereas the fund released for the state was Rs 4,200 crore in years 2014-15 and 2016.”