Famine relief

Press, 14 April 1980, Page 8

Famine relief

NZPA-Reuter New Delhi The Indian Prime Minister (Mrs Indira Gandhi) has called for a 12-point emergency plan to prevent famine in seven states hit by a severe drought. Mrs Gandhi, who recently visited some of the worst-hit areas in northern Uttar Pradesh state, said she was so shocked she had ordered the provision of -drinking .water to be put on a war footing. Her plan for immediate action calls for strong meas« ures against black marketeers, profiteers, and hoarders, intensification of the food-for-work programme, and the appointment of fulltime relief officers in the districts most seriously affected by food scarcity and unemployment. 1 The Agriculture Minister (Mr Rao Birendra Singh) has forwarded her wishes to the state administrations in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Rajasthan, Mahashtra, and Andhra Pradesh.

Mrs Gandhi’s plan also calls for the opening of a controlled-price shop for every 2000 people, and the setting up of feeding centres

for children, nursing mothers, pregnant women, and destitutes who cannot be employed. The plan says drill rigs should be mobilised On a war footing for boring and deepening wells in the most seriously affected areas. The “Statesman” newspaper reported that 42,812 out of the 78,402 villages in northern Bihar state, one of ; India’s poorest, had been affected, and 30 million people there were short of

Scanty rain last year and the arrival of the monsoon two weeks late contributed to crop failures and famine conditions in Bihar and other hard-hit areas.

Despite crop failures in some regions, officials said the position of food-graiii stocks in the central pool was “comfortable.”

They said that on March 1, Government stocks were 6.5 million tonnes of wheat and 9 million tonnes of rice, against a monthly requirement ,of 900,000 tonnes of wheat and 450,000 tonnes of rice for the public distribution system and the food-for-work programmes-