Press Note Eng Dt: 23/05/2013 on Drought
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Encl:- Press Note Documents
OFFICE OF THE FORMER LEADER OF OPPOSITION
Gandhinagar.
Press Note 23rd May, 2013
- Central govt has given additional relief of Rs 864.71 crore to help Gujarat in the time of crisis.
- A massive amount of Rs 1909.72 crore is lying in the Gujarat account of State Disaster Response Fund.
- Gujarat has got millions of rupees from centre, but it is not undertaking relief work in scarcity hit areas.
- BJP government is playing vote politics in the name of cow protection, but has done nothing for starting water or cattle camps. Consequently cattles are dying.
- Government has adopted a policy that Gaushalas of Jains and other social workers do not get any help for their humanitarian causes.
- Cattle owners have to pass through a maze of hurdles to get grass card.
- Relief works, cash doles, water distribution or cattle camps, nothing has been started.
Senior Congress leader and former Leader of Opposition Shaktisinh Gohil today lashed out against insensitive and anti people BJP government in the state. He said that despite liberal help from central government and set proceedures to help scarcity affected people in Gujarat, the government had not initiated any relief measure.
On the other hand, Gohil said, the government which always uses cow protection issue in its election planks has done nothing for cattle in the scarcity affected areas. What is more shocking is the policies of the government which makes helps to gaushaalas and cattle owners inaccessible through maze of bureaucratic hurdles, he further pointed out.
In his media interaction, he provided details he got from the Union Agriculture Minister which showed that Central govt has given additional relief of Rs 864.71 crore to help Gujarat in the time of crisis and a massive amount of Rs 1909.72 crore is lying in the Gujarat account of State Disaster Response Fund. This has been conveyed through a letter D.O.MO. 7-1/2012-DM of May 6, 2013. He circulated a copy of this letter to media.
He recalled the days when government in the past used to provide people water in affected areas through tankers or other means. This year people are forced to buy water from private suppliers and they are spending more on water than milk, he said.
Similarly, the age old system of starting cattle camps has been given a go by and cattles are dying because of shortage of water and fodder. Neither there is any provision of cash doles nor for seeds to people. He pointed out that the government has not started any scarcity relief work to provide employment to people this year.
People have no water. Power supply has been reduced from ten to eight hours even as people need power supply for 24 hours a day to meet their demand for water. Even the 8 hour power supply is during night time which adds more problems to farmers. BJP government is playing vote politics in the name of cow protection, but is doing great injutce to them. He showed a recent circular of the state government 202012 – 424 –S -1 and said that it showed clear attempts how not to help cows. Government has adopted a policy that Gaushalas of Jains and other social workers do not get any help for their humanitarian causes. He quoted a para of the above circular that “cattles in panjarapoles and gaushalas in nagarpalika and nagar panchayat areas will not get help”. He said that it is a well known fact that villages do not have panjarapoles and gaushalas. Big cities have these organizations where people from villages keep their cattle in the time of crisis.
The circular also has a provision that these organizations would also not get grass at subsidized rates. This has posed a great problem for the organizations involved in the humanitarian activity. Earlier all were given help for starting cattle camps.
He said that even those who declared eligible for help are made to fill a form for grass card which seeks all kind of irrelevant and unnecessary data. This makes it herculean task. Gohil pointed out that cattle census was done in 2012 and government could get all necessary information from its own records rather than asking scarcity affected people do the task.
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Note :-
(1) A letter brining out the fact that Central govt has given to Gujarat additional relief of
Rs 864.71 crore and that Rs 1909.72 crore is lying in the Gujarat account of State
Disaster Response Fund.
(2) Govt circular keeping gaushalas and panjarapoles out of reach of government help.
(3) A copy of government for grass card which seeks all irrelevant information
All these are available on https://shaktisinhgohil.com
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