Centre working for permanent solution to drought: PM Modi

Rangia (Assam), April 8: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said his government was working on a plan to irrigate parched farmlands in order to arrive at a permanent solution to drought in many parts of the country.

"We are working on a big scheme to bring water to farmlands. We need to have a permanent solution to the drought," the Prime Minister told an election rally here. Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, northern Karnataka, South-Western Uttar Pradesh have been under the grip of severe water crisis and hundreds of farmers have committed suicide in the recent past. Modi also said that eastern India would witness a second agricultural revolution.

"The revolution will take place in Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Assam and the Northeast. We are working on this direction," he said. He said that the NDA government would electrify around 18,000 villages in the next 1,000 days. "In Assam, there are around 3,000 villages where no electric pole has reached. In the last 3-4 months, over 900 villages across India have got electricity. The rest will be done in the coming days," he said.

Attacking the ruling Congress government in the state, the Prime Minister said people of Assam suffered from a shortage of sufficient drinking water despite having a river like Brahmaputra. Asserting that people of Assam were angry with Congress, he said time had arrived to "not only punish them, but cleanse the state" of its misrule.

"The Congress has never got over corruption and family-centric politics. Congress is doing vote bank politics in the name of poor," Modi said. Talking about infiltration, he said that the need of the hour was to solve the problem, otherwise Assam cannot develop.

PTI