By IANS,
Chandigarh: Haryana Sunday urged the central government to provide it Rs. 3,168.75 crore to tackle drought-like conditions.
“Haryana has been adversely affected due to the weak and erratic monsoon. This special package is needed to provide money for additional power purchase, additional cost incurred on diesel, seeds for the unsown area and for construction of water channels for village ponds and for boring tube wells,” Haryana Chief Secretary Dharam Vir said here.
“Due to the poor rainfall, kharif crops are withering away and large tracks of land in the state have remained barren and unsown,” he added.
This year, kharif crops have been sown in only 26.57 lakh hectares in Haryana as against 28.92 lakh hectares in the corresponding period last year.
“Apart from this financial package, we have also urged the central government to announce the bonus and minimum support price in advance for both paddy and millet (bajra) crops,” Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said.
Hooda said drought-like conditions were prevailing in 13 of the state’s 21 districts.