Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy directed officials to focus on e-cropping registrations while maintaining enough stock of cattle fodder in view of the prolonged dry spell in the State.
Speaking at a review meeting on the dry spell and the contingency plans to be implemented at his camp office on Friday, the Chief Minister said e-crop data was essential for extending financial support to farmers and directed them to begin the registrations and collect cattle data from all village secretariats in order to make suitable arrangements for stocking of a sufficient quantity of fodder.
He also wanted officials to arrange meetings of farmers’ advisory councils immediately under the aegis of District Collectors to discuss contingency plans and create awareness among farmers on alternative crops in view of the dry spell.
He directed officials to introduce the Andhra Pradesh Minimum Support Price (MSP) Bill in the next Assembly session to ensure that the farmers get MSP for their produce and RBKs play a key role. The officials informed him that 7,005 metric tonnes of cattle fodder seeds was ready for distribution and 74,023 metric tonnes of Total Mixed Ration (TMR) was also ready.
Short rainfall
Officials informed the Chief Minister that the State had experienced a reduced rainfall of 314.6 mm as against the usual 419.6 mm between June and August, making the deficit 25%.
Konaseema, Kakinada, Nellore, West Godavari, NTR, Tirupati, Palnadu, Prakasam, Anantapur, Sri Satya Sai, Annamayya, YSR, Kurnool and Nandyal districts had experienced lesser rainfall and in some of these districts, the adverse effect of short rainfall would be less as they had other irrigation sources.
Enough water had been released in advance to meet irrigational needs of Krishna delta and presently, the needs of Godavari delta were being met.
There was no scarcity of water to meet irrigation needs under Vamsadhara and Totapally reservoirs and the requirements were almost being met under the ayacuts of Velugodu, Gandikota, Chitravati, Brahma Sagar, Mailavaram and Gorukallu reservoirs.
Officials said that the demand for electricity had gone up by 18 per cent from the power grid compared to last year due to prolonged dry spell and that 44.25 million units were purchased daily by spending an amount of ₹2,935 crore between March and August.
Agriculture and Marketing Minister K. Govardhana Reddy, Water Resources Minister A. Rambabu, Animal Husbandry Minister S. Appala Raju, AP Agricultural Mission Vice-Chairman M.V.S. Nagi Reddy, Chief Secretary K.S. Jawahar Reddy, Special Chief Secretaries K. Vijayanand (Energy) and Goplakrishna Dwivedi (Agriculture), Water Resources Principal Secretary Sasibhushan Kumar, Agriculture Special Commissioner Ch. Hari Kiran and others were present.
