Efforts on to mitigate drought

Chittoor: District Collector Siddharth Jain said that severe drought conditions were prevailing in 41 mandals in the district. Speaking to the media at the Collectorate here on Tuesday, the Collector said instructions were given to officials concerned not to allow single acre of crop dried up in drought-hit mandals.

He stated that officials were told to distribute rain guns, sprinklers and oil engines to farmers. He said that groundnut crop in 18,000 hectares is on the verge of drying up.The Collector informed the media personnel that the State government had deputed 11 IAS officers to mitigate drought in Piler, GD Nellore, Kuppam, Thamballapalle, Chandragiri, Punganur, Puthalapattu, Palamaner, Madanapalle and Nagari Assembly constituencies. “IAS officer M N Harendra Prasad would be supervising the command control room,” he added.

Referring the steps being taken by district administration to mitigate the drought in these mandals, Jain said that the farmers were using 1,500 rain guns in the drought-hit mandals and another 300 would be supplied soon.

Efforts were on to wet groundnut crop with the rain guns, he said. The Collector stated that 1,664 sprinklers, 300 oil engines and 28,900 pipes were supplied to the farmers.

To a question, Jain said more than 1,200 tankers were engaged in supplying the water to wet the crops where there are no borewells. He pointed out that command control room was set up at the office of the DRO to receive complaints from the farmers through telephone number 08572-240500. Joint Collector Girisha, Joint Collector-2 Venkata Subba Reddy, DRO Vijayachander and other officials were present.