Dehradun: Five out of 13 districts of Uttarakhand located in the hills will soon be declared drought-hit, a senior official said on Thursday. Almora district in Kumaon belt is the worst hit with 1,343 hectares of irrigated land and 24,000 unirrigated land affected by drought.
Other hill districts in the grip of a drought are Pithoragarh, Nainital, Rudrapur and Pauri, Chief Secretary of Uttarakhand, Shatrughna Singh, said. Efforts are under way to declare a total of 74,000 hectares of land spread over five hill districts of Uttarakhand as drought-hit, he said.
Once these districts are declared drought-hit, farmers will start getting concessions like a periodic moratorium on repayment of loan taken from banks and collection of revenue from them.
