Drought-like situation declared in Manipur

Our Correspondent
Imphal, Sep. 1 (EMN): The government of Manipur has officially declared ‘drought-like situation’ in the state, thereby seeking assistance for relief from the Centre. The decision taken by Manipur’s Cabinet comes after a high-level emergency meeting of officials chaired by the Chief Minister N Biren Singh on August 31, an official statement informed on Sunday.

The state agriculture department has also issued a ‘drought notification’ in this regard.

Due to significant deficit in rainfall, drought has adversely affected crops across 70 blocks of the state, according to the statement. As per initial estimates, many of those blocks have crop failure ranging from 33% to more than 50%, based on which they were categorised as moderate and severely-affected.

It was reported that the biggest impact of drought due to deficit rainfall has been in the valley districts, although several hill blocks were also affected in varying degrees.

As per the drought declaration issued by the directorate of Agriculture, 31 blocks out of 70 drought affected blocks were categorised as severely-affected blocks, and among them 13 blocks were in the valley districts while the remaining are in hill districts.

Imphal East has as many as five severely-affected blocks, while Bishnupur and Chandel have one severely-affected block each.

Prior to the meeting, Chief Minister N Biren Singh reviewed the rainfall situation during another high-level emergency meeting which was attended by cabinet ministers, MLAs, chief secretary, top officials of Planning, Revenue, Agriculture departments besides heads of Central Agricultural University and Indian Council of Agricultural Research (Manipur).

It was informed that there was more than 50% rainfall deficit in the state while reservoirs recorded more than 60% deficit-level.

Manipur’s State Remote Sensing Centre is assessing the vegetation cover of the state, based on the satellite data, it added. The deputy commissioners are conducting ground verification through Revenue and Agriculture department staff.

The Relief and Disaster Management department will submit a memorandum for relief to the government of India within a week. After that, the Centre is to depute an inter-ministerial team to the state for verification, the statement informed.