HDK seeks help from Centre to mitigate drought

Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Saturday called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and sought central assistance to take up relief works in drought-hit areas.

The chief minister, who was here to attend the Niti Aayog meeting, requested the prime minister to release Rs 1,500 crore under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) scheme to the state at the earliest.

Before the Lok Sabha polls, the state government, in its memorandum to the Centre, had sought financial assistance of Rs 2,064 crore to provide relief to farmers hit by drought during the rabi season.

The chief minister informed Modi that the state was facing drought this year too, because of 45% shortfall in rainfall.

While sharing the state government’s success in implementing farm loan waiver, the chief minister said the state was preparing to waive Rs 12,830 crore of loans taken by 23 lakh farmers.

Separately, Kumaraswamy met Union Finance Minister Nirmala Seetharaman and requested her to recruit candidates knowing the regional language for regional rural banks (RRBs).

The RRBs were started to sub-serve the banking needs of the local people, by interacting with customers in local languages, the chief minister said. However, the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS), which recruits staff to banks through a common recruitment process, has diluted the provision of knowing local languages for candidates.

The dilution not only deprives the opportunity of getting jobs in RRBs for regional language-speaking candidates, but also denies good service from banks to the local people. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jaganmohan Reddy also met the prime minister separately and discussed with him issues related to their states.