Two separate Central teams on drought assessment led by senior officials visited various villages of Dharwad and Davangere districts on Saturday to take stock of the ground realities and also listen to grievances of the farmers.
A Central team on drought assessment led by Joint Secretary of Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Ajit Kumar Sahoo began its tour of Dharwad district by visiting Harobelavadi village, where it visited the onion field of farmer Anwar Shaikh and interacted with him.
Subsequently the team visited Amminabhavi, Marewad villages in Dharwad taluk and then visited Gokul and Rayanal villages of Hubballi taluk to assess the drought situation. The team members also inspected some of the works taken up under MGNREGA.
The team comprised of senior Central government officials J. Ponnuswamy, Mahendra Chandelia, Shivasharan Meena and State Agriculture Commissioner Y.S. Patil. Welcoming the team and accompanying them during their visits, Deputy Comissioner of Dharwad Gurudatta Hegde and other officials of district agriculture and horticulture departments apprised the team members about the rain deficit and crop loss in the district.
Meanwhile, some of the farmers held a demonstration outside the Deputy Commissioner’s office in Dharwad seeking declaration of Kalaghatagi, Alnavar and Annigeri taluks as drought hit.
In Davangere
Another Central team led by Ministry of Jal Shakti director V. Ashok Kumar and others began its tour of drought assessment from Donnehalli village in Jagalur taluk of Davangere district and subsequently visited few other villages to check the ground reality.
The team comprised of senior officials Karan Choudhary, Sangeet Kumar and senior advisor to SDRF Srinivas Reddy. Welcoming the team Deputy Commissioner M.V. Venkatesh and ZP CEO Suresh B. Itnal briefed them about the drought situation in the district.
At Donnehalli, the team visited the fields of Jayamma, Somashekhar, Thipperudrappa and Shanthamma and sought details from the affected farmers.
Mr. Venkatesh told presspersons that said that because of rain deficit, the State government had declared all the six taluks in the district as drought-hit. Already after the joint survey, input subsidy as per NDRF guidelines had been sought for 1.57 lakh hectares and the Central team had been apprised about the severity of the drought.
