ASSESSMENT: REVENUE Minister Jagadish Shettar chairing a review meeting in Gulbarga on Thursday. Deputy Commissioner Pankajkumar Pandey is seen.

GULBARGA: Revenue Minister Jagadish Shettar on Thursday directed the district administration to speed up acquisition of land for shifting flood-affected villages in the district and also prepare estimates for shifting flood-prone ones.

Chairing a district-level review meeting of relief works in flood-affected villages and the drought situation in the district at the meeting hall of the Deputy Commissioner's office here, Mr. Shettar said the Government had already released Rs. 23 crore for land acquisition in the State. An amount of Rs. 53 lakh was released for Gulbarga district for the purpose, he said.

Report

Deputy Commissioner Pankajkumar Pandey, who presented a report of relief measures taken so far in flood-hit areas and the drought situation in the district, said 37 villages were identified as flood-prone in the district and of them two villages - Aurad (K) in Gulbarga taluk and Kudiganur in Afsalpur taluk— would have to be fully shifted and the remaining 35 villages would have to be partially shifted.

Mr. Pandey said the lands for shifting majority of the villages had been identified and acquisition process would be over in a fortnight.

Crop loss

Referring to the loss of the crops and compensation to be paid to them, he said the survey on crop loss was over and Rs. 7 crore would have to be paid as compensation to the affected farmers.

The payment of compensation to farmers would begin shortly, he said.

He said four persons were either drowned or washed away in the floods and the compensation had been disbursed.

No reports of migration

The Deputy Commissioner told the Minister that as of now there were no reports of migration of agricultural labourers in search of employment. The problem may arise after the completion of rabi sowing operations in the coming months and the district administration had prepared a plan for providing employment to needy agricultural labourers under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and other drought-relief works to prevent migration.

Fodder shortage

Mr. Shettar said the Government had issued directions to all district administrations to open cattle sheds in all taluk headquarters wherever there was shortage of fodder.

Mr. Pandey said the district administration would require Rs. 9.44 crore for transport of fodder to meet the shortage. To tackle the drinking water shortage in the coming months, the district administration had prepared a master plan for supply of drinking water through tankers in 106 villages of the 1,360 villages at a cost of Rs 1.03 crore. In urban areas, tanker supply would be taken up at a cost of Rs. 90.7 lakh. Mr. Pandey said the farmers had suffered extensive loss owing to the failure of crops in Kharif season and the estimated loss of crops in the district was to the tune of more than Rs. 110.45 crore.

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