Maharashtra govt releases Rs 1454 crore towards drought relief measures

MUMBAI: The state government on Friday released Rs 1454 crore towards drought relief measures. This is the second installment of the Rs 2900 crore that the state has promised towards drought relief measures.
Maharashtra has already declared 151 talukas as drought affected and had also sent a memorandum to the Centre seeking Rs 7900 crore towards relief measures.The Centre has only released Rs 4714 crore.
So far, 60 per cent of the state's farmers are hit by drought. Around 86 lakh hectares of land under cultivation has been affected with drought. Of the 1.6 crore farmers in the state, 82 lakh have been affected.
Maharashtra government has also budgeted another Rs 2000 crore from its contingency funds for drought relief.
From this installment, Rs 7.06 crore will go to the Konkan division, Rs 446.48 crore to Nashik division, Rs 206.59 crore to Pune division, Rs 525.29 crore to Aurangabad division, Rs 237.18 crore to Amravati division and Rs 32.13 crore for Nagpur division.
Besides the compensation amount, the state has also extended other relief measures like waiver in student fees from those villages, stay on recovering of crop loans, stay on payment of agricultural electricity bills, waiver on ST bus tickets from students and providing food grains at cheaper rates.