UP to identify drought areas at tehsil level

Lucknow, Sep 14 (UNI) The Uttar Pradesh government today announced it will identify drought-hit areas on the basis of tehsils, where agricultural production loss exceeds 50 per cent.

Earlier, the governemnt used to identify drought-hit areas at district level.

State revenue minister Ambika Choudhury admitted that there was average low rainfall in UP and the tehsil level had been introduced to cover more drought-hit areas.

She, however, said only tehsils, where the crop loss was more than 50 per cent would be eligible for compensation.

The minister rejected the demand of some members that those areas where average rainfall was less than 50 per cent be declared drought-hit.

The state agriculture minister Ashok Bajpai said the agricultural growth rate in UP was expected around 5.1 per cent in 2006-07, while it was 2.20 per cent in 2004-05, 1.70 per cent in 2003-04 and 1.10 per cent in 2002-03.

Admitting that the profit of the farmers had gone down in the recent past he informed that the state had identified over 9 lakh hectares of barren land to be converted into agricultural area in the next few yrs.

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