Bundelkhand MPs demand Rs 25000 crore package from PM

New Delhi, Mar 17 (UNI) Rising above party affiliations, members of Parliament from Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh today appealed to the Prime Minister to declare the severe drought in the region as a National Calamity and demanded a Rs 25000 crore special economic package.

A five-member delegation of MPs from MP and UP today met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and invited him to the parched region to get a first hand account of the situation there.

The delegation comprised of two Samajwadi Party MPs from UP -- Rajnarain Budholia (Hamirpur), Chandrpal Singh Yadav (Hamirpur) and three Madhya Pradesh BJP MPs -- Ramkrishna Kusumaria (Khujrao), Chandrabhan Singh (Damoh) and Virendra Kumar (Sagar).

They claimed that farmers did not have sufficient water to drink, leave alone irrigate fields. ''There are not many employment opportunities to help farmers find an alternative to feed themselves,'' they claimed.

The Prime Minister assured them of planning a Bundelkhand tour and looking favourably into their demand for a financial package.

The memorandum claimed that more than 90 per cent of the land in the drought-hit region could not be cultivated due to a lack of irrigation facilities. They claimed that the livestock was fast perishing due to lack of fodder and water.

Bundelkhand is spread across seven districts of UP and over nine districts of MP.

They said it would be appropriate if the Centre declared the Bundelkhand drought as a National Calamity and pumped enough money to develop basic infrastructure in the region on a war-footing.

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