Karwar: “The Central Drought Assessment Team headed by the Joint Secretary of Agriculture Department, Amitabh Gautam will be arriving in the state to assess the situation of all the drought-hit districts from November 17 to 19,” said State Revenue Minister R V Deshpande.
Elaborating on this, he said, “A 10-member team will be arriving here for the purpose. This will be further subdivided into three teams to divide and visit different locations.”
“On the first day, i.e., on November 17, a team led by Amitabh Gautam will be heading towards Yadagiri and Raichur and on November 18, the team will be heading towards Davangere and Ballari”, he added.
Further, Deshpande said, “The second team led by Dr. Mahesh will visit Dharwad, Belagavi, Bagalkot, Vijaypura and Gadag. The third team led by Manas Chaudari will be visiting Kolar, Chikkaballapur, Tumkur and Chitradurga.”
He said, “When such teams from the Centre arrive here, the local representatives can provide accurate information on the losses incurred.”
“By now, around 100 towns have been identified as drought-affected”, he added.
Deshpande said that on October 30, he along with the State Agriculture Minister H Shivashankar Reddy had left for Delhi, to meet Home Minister Rajnath Singh to brief him about the loss due to drought.
He said, “We had requested for funds of Rs 2434 Crore from the NDRF (National Disaster Reserve Fund). We had informed him about the loss amount which is estimated at around Rs 16, 662 Crore.”
