Other States - Rajasthan   

‘Change calamity relief criteria’

JAIPUR: Former Rajasthan Chief Minister and Congress general secretary Ashok Gehlot has requested Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to revise the criteria for providing calamity relief to include damage to crops due to cold wave, frost and hailstorm. The State’s farmers have been victims of the vagaries of the weather during the past three months and the Bharatiya Janata Party-led State Government did precious nothing to provide them relief, he noted.

“Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, busy pitting one caste against the other, remained a mute spectator to the plight of the State’s farmers,” Mr. Gehlot said in a statement here. “First it was the frost and the cold wave conditions which hit the farmers in January-February. Thereafter storm, hail and unseasonal rains played havoc with the standing crops,” he observed.

After “playing politics” over the first calamity, the Rs.126-crore packages announced by Ms. Raje too did not reach the farmers, he charged. He expressed disappointment over the State Government not spending from the Relief Fund. He demanded proper distribution of relief to the affected farmers from the Rs.126-crore packages and a fresh “girdavari”(crop damage assessment) into the recent storm and rain.

In another move, a group of Congress leaders met Chief Secretary D. C. Samant asking him to stop violation of Constitutional rights of the Panchayati Raj representatives in the Government campaign, “Sarvajan Sambal”.

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