State seeks more funds to tackle drought

raichur: "the state has demanded rs 736 crore more from the centre to tackle drought," said public works minister dharam singh here at lingasugur on sunday. speaking at a press conference, he said the chief minister has visited the drought-hit districts and instructed the district administrations to speed up drought relief works. "it should not be stopped under any circumstances.the present situation indicates drinking water and fodder scarcity will worsen in near future." dharam singh, who is also the district in-charge minister, expected a favourable reply from the centre as the issue was raised at the ndc meeting held on saturday. saying the state was faced with a severe drought after the 1972 famine, he added any sort of exploitation of the affected by the authorities would not be tolerated. "presently, relief projects worth rs 1.84 crore were going on and employment generation was the priority." thanking the centre for releasing foodgrains to the state, he said the implementation of the `kooligagi kalu' (food for work) project would have been impossible otherwise. so far, the state government has released rs 1.84 crore to the raichur district administration towards drought relief and the authorities have taken up 161 works in this regard. dharam singh told the reporters that congress president sonia gandhi would visit the district on september 10. mallikarjuna nagappa, minister for municipalities; deputy commissioner g. kumar nayak; syed yasin, raichur mla; n.s. bhosraj, mla of manvi and chairman of hyderabad-karnataka development board; a. vasanth kumar, chairman of raichur urban development authority and president of district youth congress; m. earanna, former president of raichur city municipal council; patange jayanth rao, chairman of rapcms ltd; k. saraswati, president of zilla panchayat; amaregouda bayyapur, mla of lingasugur; s.b. dyaberi, zp chief executive officer and many officials were present at the press conference.