West Bengal declares 11 districts as drought-hit

The West Bengal government today declared 11 districts in the state as drought-hit and allocated Rs 50 crore to tackle the situation caused by deficient rainfall.

The decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at the Writers' Buildings, finance minister Asim Dasgupta said.

According to Dasgupta, Bhattacharjee would soon write to Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar requesting him to despatch a central team to study the situation.

He said the districts had nearly 30% less-than-normal rainfall causing the drought situation. 

"There has been severe damage to the kharif crop in 11 districts," he said, adding the government was seriously considering converting farmers' short-term loans into long-term.

"Subsidy for irrigable areas will be Rs 4,000 crore and that for non-irrigable areas Rs 2,000 crore," Dasgupta announced.

He, however, ruled out any food scarcity due to the drought situation in the 11 districts and promised to take stern action in case there were attempts to create artificial scarcity of foodgrains.

The dought-hit districts are Purulia, Bankura, Murshidabad, Birbhum, Burdwan (known as the rice-bowl of West Bengal), Hooghly, North and South 24 Parganas, West Midnapore, Nadia and Malda.