Palamu facing drought, rain deficit 55.33 %, says Kishore

BJP MLA Radha Krishan Kishore today said that Palamu is in the grip of drought. “Drought has come here,” he repeated thrice in a press conference here on Tuesday but reposed his faith in the Raghubar Das Government, which he described as a ‘sensitive Government’, will  tackle drought without any loss of time, he added.

Kishore said such scanty is the rainfall here that even water bodies are not full even. About dovas he said some are good and some are too bad because of their faulty location where it has been so dug up in the past.

June to 20 August Palamu’s average rainfall in happy times used to be 885mm. But till this August 20 it is 395 mm which is a bare 44.67% only said Kishore, wondering how in such a poor rainfall there can be paddy all around in 51,000 hectares of land.

He said when rain is scanty so will be the transplantation of paddy poor as well. Paddy transplantation is only 54.64% till August 20. Out of 51,000 hectares to be covered with paddy transplantation it is only in 27,864 hectares that paddy transplantation has been done till this August 20.

Reminded that there may come more rains to which he said “So what? Now no quantum of rain will help transplantation of paddy. The best and last period of transplantation of paddy is August 15. It is 5 more days gone. No one knows when will come the rains. It will not augment any further paddy transplantation.”

When his attention was drawn towards alternative crop of pulses like kurthee, rajma, sargooja etc he said all these need 1,200 quintal of seeds and as of now there is no seed here in Palamu.

“Time is running out fast. Every department like irrigation, electricity, health, forest , drinking water etc will have to converge to fight it out ( read drought) here” he opined.

The MLA said he is unaware if Palamu administration is pro active in this direction as “I have not seen (read met) the DC Palamu over the last 6 months or so.” He said he would meet chief minister, secretary and director agriculture and discuss ways and means to overcome this problem. It is time now for disaster management department to react to keep an eye on situation he added.

While talking about drought and its ill effect here Kishore referred to Rs 9 crore fund lying in DMFT ( district mining fund trust)  over the last three or four years which in fact was to be spent on the utility services of the people living in the mining areas .

Kishore was very critical when he said the district administration is yet to give crop insurance to farmers of the year 2015 -16 as he said this attitude of keeping crop insurance pending for years comes as a watershed on our PM Narender Modi’s all concern for the farmers.

 “Just wait for two or three weeks more and if there is no let up in situation then we will sit and find measures for relief “he said.