Central team visits villages

Tirupati: The 3-member inter-ministerial Central team on Thursday visited the villages in drought-hit areas in the mandals of Valamikipuram, Kalikiri and Gurramkonda and interacted with farmers, agriculture labourers and officials to assess the impact of the drought and the relief measures being taken up by the district administration to mitigate the adverse condition.

The team including Amitav Chakravarthy, Mukesh Kumar and Victor Amit Raj first visited the photo exhibition organised in Madanapalle showcasing the impact of drought and the relief measures underway in the affected areas.

Chief Planning Officer (CPO) Bhaskar Sharma, who made a power point presentation, explained the severity of the drought in Madanapalle division and also relief measures initiated department wise including agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry and employment generation.

Later, the team visited dried up Bhogapuram Project with no rains and interacted with the ayacutdhars, who were unable to take up crop, due to scanty rains and the tomato farmers of same mandal have poured their woes and explained about the loses they have been suffering with no remunerative price for tomatoes.

They vociferously sought permanent measures for the farmers to get good price for the tomato. The team members before winding up the 7-hour hectic visit to drought-hit areas also inspected the parched fields before interacting with the villagers in Maddelacheruvupalem and Vaddipalli in Piler mandal on drinking water supply. Madanapalle Sub-Collector Keerthi Chekuri and other officials are among those accompanied the Central team.

Dried-up crops inspected

A 3-member inter-ministerial Central team headed by Rajiv Singhal has visited several villages in Rayachoti and Ramapuram mandals on Thursday. They inspected mango and groundnut crops which were withered due to prevailing severe drought conditions.

Later, team members interacted with the farmers. In the meeting organised at Sibyala Pedda Cheruvu village, central team interacted with the farmers whether they are getting seeds and fertilisers properly from the government or not. The central team wanted to know as to how much the farmers have invested to raise standing crops like mango, groundnut, and other horticulture crops during the Kharif season.

Rayachoti MLA G Srikanth Reddy, who participated in the meeting, has recalled that last year also central team visited the Rayachoti Assembly constituency, but no expected justice was done as the central government least bothered over the issue. He urged the team to recommend the government to initiate steps for enhancing 180 working days to prevent mass migration in Rayachoti constituency.

Earlier, the central team witnessed the photo exhibition organised by I&PR Department at Roads & Buildings guest house here and held a review meeting with District Collector Ch Harikiran over prevailing drought conditions in the district.

The Collector explained them that there was 6 percent deficit rainfall recorded in 2018 as the government declared all 55 mandals as drought-hit areas in the district. Central team members Sandeep Sharma, Karan Chowdary and others were present.