Central drought team to submit report in a week

The Central drought study team which arrived in Dharwad on Wednesday to study the impact of drought during the rabi season, said that it would submit a detailed report to the Centre in a week’s time.

The team headed by S K Kamboj, senior joint commissioner in the Ministry of Water Resources, and with Dr Tarun Kumar Singh and Satya Kumar as members, said that to assess the crop loss incurred during rabi, the central government had formed three teams, which will conduct survey of crop loss and collect appeals of the farmers in the next two days.

This team will be touring Dharwad, Gadag, Belagavi, Bagalkot and Vijayapura districts which are severely drought-hit and prepare a report.

On March 1 (Saturday), the team members will hold a meeting with higher officials of the state government in Bengaluru and travel to Delhi to submit the drought report to the Centre.

The farmers have said that the drought has crippled their lives and it has been observed by the team that there is a huge crop loss in this region. The team has also collected information of drought-relief works taken up under MGNREGS, he added.

The team visited several fields in Mansur, Amminbhavi and Harobelavadi in Dharwad taluk before departing for Belagavi district.

The district administration has claimed Rs 110 crore crop loss in the district due to drought. MLA Amrut Desai, DC Deepa Cholan and ZP CEO B C Sateesh accompanied the team.

Farmers in Uddagatta village of Jagalur taluk in Davangere district made the drought assessment team get down, when they were about to board the car to lewave. They took them to the 400-acre tank, which had gone dry for the past 20 years, and showed it to them. The team was in neighbouring Chitradurga too.

The central drought team comprising of three officers visited drought affected villages in Ramdurg and Savadatti taluks of Belagavi district to take stock of the drought situation and assessed damages to standing crops in a hurried manner.