Have reminded PM on Drought Fund, Says Karnataka CM

BENGALURU: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday said he was unaware of the reason as to why the Central Government has not released funds for Karnataka to tackle drought despite making representation to both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Minister for Home Amit Shah.

Talking to reporters in Periyapatna taluk of Mysuru district, Siddaramaiah said he reminded the Prime Minister during his recent visit to Bengaluru a couple of days back on release of funds to address drought in Karnataka and reminded that farmers of the State are in dire straits owing to drought. Continuing, he said, “I had met Amit Shah and he had assured to hold a meeting on funds release but the meeting was scheduled once but got postponed for reasons unknown.”

Owing to weak monsoon this season, the Karnataka government declared drought in 223 taluks of the State and assessed the damages to about Rs 33,000 crore to tackle drought and made two requests to the Central Government to release Rs 17, 910 crore.

To a query if Code of Conduct is announced for the ensuing Lok Sabha polls would come in the way of funds released by the Central Government, Siddaramaiah said there is no connection between implementation of Code of Conduct and drought relief measures and intervening Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar said that Code of Conduct does not come in the way for drinking water and drought relief measures.

To tackle drought, the Chief Minister said steps have been initiated to solve drinking water, fodder problems and also to stop migration of people and for farmers the State Government has released Rs 2,000 to each of the farmers as first installment towards drought relief. An amount of Rs 550 crore has been released and by next week all farmers would get Rs 2,000.