Chouhan assures help, declares 82 districts drought-hit

Declaring 82 tehsils being drought-hit, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Friday assured farmers of his government's support in this need of the hour and announced early disbursal of relief funds.

Talking to reporters here, Chouhan said he found due to no rains and crop diseases about 19,900 villages of the state's 23 districts crops have been affected. Earlier, 32 tehsils were declared drought-hit, pushing the presently tally to 114 thus far.

Assuring farmers to not lose hope, the chief minister said the government presently has around Rs.1,000 crore for their help and if required it would be raised to Rs.2,000 -Rs.3,000 crore soon.

Earlier in the day, the chief minister presided over a meeting of officials and directed for evaluating the drought-hit areas. He also directed to provide relief funds to all affected farmers at the earliest and suspend crop debt recovery from drought-hit farmers.

Meanwhile, a debt-ridden and crop loss-hit farmer, 45, committed suicide by hanging himself with a tree in Baitul district.

A police official told reporters that a tribal village was found hanging in a field, two days after he left home. His 15-year-old daughter said her father had mentioned about his heavy debt and crop loss and thus left to meet her mother who works in Maharashtra.