Jharkhand govt demands Rs 9682 crore drought relief from Centre

The Jharkhand government today demanded Rs 9,682 crore from the union government for drought relief.

State Minister for Agriculture and Animal Husbandry and Cooperatives Badal Patralekh accompanied by his department secretary Abu Bakar Siddique flagged off the department during a meeting with Union Minister for Agriculture and Social Affairs Manoj Ahuja at Krishi Bhawan in New Delhi.

The Jharkhand minister said that due to less rainfall and less crop coverage in the 2022 Kharif season, 226 blocks of 22 districts of the state have been declared drought-affected and the amount is needed to help farmers. On this occasion, the State Minister also discussed steps to establish a soil testing facility, create a revolving fund for ATMA and increase incentives.

The union's agriculture secretary responded positively to Badal's proposal and instructed his department officials to extend all support to Jharkhand. During the discussion, Union Agriculture Secretary Ahuja also asked the Jharkhand minister to identify 500 high schools for soil testing. He said the union government would make arrangements for a soil testing laboratory and explain how it would benefit the state.

“Students will be trained to bring in soil from their own land and from other farmers' land, have it tested in the lab, and tell the farmers what the soil is like at that location and what crops can be grown there. This would be a good experiment and you should prepare a project for it and send it to us. Government of India has arranged a seed tracking portal, it should be implemented soon in Jharkhand as well to ensure that the right seeds are distributed in the market,” he said.