Drought relief: Govt releases half of FY10 MPLAD sum

The government has released Rs 782.50 crore, equalling to about 50 per cent of total fund ear -marked for the current financial year under the MPLAD scheme, in the first 100 days of its formation.

A major portion of the granted fund would be utilised for mitigating the ill-effects of the erratic and deficient monsoon.

"Rs 782.50 crore has been released (under Member of Parliament Local Area Development scheme) during the period, which is about 50 per cent of the total budget for the year 2009-10," a senior official from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation told PTI.

In view of the "failed monsoon," the official said the MPs have been asked to channelise a major part of the fund towards development work.

"Keeping in view the drought situation in the country, an appeal has been issued by the Minister (Sriprakash Jaiswal) to all the Members of the Parliament to recommend works relating to provision of drinking water- such as hand pumps, storage tanks, reservoirs, community rain water harvesting etc in the notified drought affected districts," he added.

Also, certain guidelines have been amended which would help save about 30-40 per cent in installing new hand pumps. A hand pump installation costs about Rs 30,000.

"To mitigate the hardships faced by the people due to failure of monsoon, a decision has been taken to allow for new borings in lieu of existing non-functional hand pumps using reusable components/ parts of the non-functional hand pumps for drinking water and household purposes."