Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Haryana will dig lakes to fight drought

Decision to dig big lakes and renovate old ones has been taken in view of the adverse monsoon this year and fight drought in future.

New lakes will be dug and reservoirs built, while old ones will be renovated by the Haryana government to fight drought in the future, the State's Finance Minister Birendra Singh announced.The Haryana government has decided to dig big lakes and will renovate the old ones in the state to provide irrigation facilities to the farmers in adverse circumstances, a state government spokesman said on Monday quoting the Minister, reports IANS.The lakes and reservoirs would be constructed to deal with drought like conditions in the state. A target has been set to irrigate about 20,000 acres of land in the state by these lakes, the Minister said.Each lake would provide irrigation facilities to 2-3 acres of land. The government is making all-out efforts to provide irrigation facilities to every inch of land in the state, the Finance Minister added."To achieve this objective a network of canals and distributaries is being laid in the state," he added.Haryana is facing one of the worst droughts in recent years due to inadequate monsoon rains. The state has sought Rs 31.68 billion from the centre as drought relief.Haryana and Punjab contribute over 50 per cent of the total food grains to the national pool.Meanwhile, Haryana on Sunday urged the central government to provide it Rs. 3,168.75 crore to tackle drought-like conditions."Haryana has been adversely affected due to the weak and erratic monsoon. This special package is needed to provide money for additional power purchase, additional cost incurred on diesel, seeds for the unsown area and for construction of water channels for village ponds and for boring tube wells," Haryana Chief Secretary Dharam Vir said here."Due to the poor rainfall, kharif crops are withering away and large tracks of land in the state have remained barren and unsown," he added.This year, kharif crops have been sown in only 26.57 lakh hectares in Haryana as against 28.92 lakh hectares in the corresponding period last year.

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