UP govt declares seven districts in Bundelkhand drought-hit

Uttar Pradesh Government has declared eight districts, seven of them in Bundelkhand region, as drought-hit, even as Congress and BJP attacked the ruling SP, saying the decision should have been taken "long ago".
The decision was taken last night, a spokesman said here today.
The districts declared are -- Banda, Mahoba, Jhansi, Chitrakoot, Hamirpur, Jalaun, Lalitpur, all falling in Bundelkhand region, and Kanpur for the rabi crop session, he said.
Meanwhile BJP and Congress today lashed out at the Uttar Pradesh government for having a non-serious attitude towards the water scarce Bundelkhand region.
"The state government has been misleading the people by launching a canard that the Centre is not extending relief package to Bundelkhand but it has failed to promptly declare the districts falling in this region as drought-hit which was done only last night", BJP spokesman Harishchand Srivastava said.

"Had the state government been serious about the problems in Bundelkhand, it would have declared it as drought-hit long ago, so that proper arrangements could have started there to deal with the massive problems," he said.

The delay goes on to prove that the state government is not serious and had only been misleading the people by launching a false propaganda against the Centre, Srivastava said.
Chairman of Congress' communications department Satyadev Tripathi alleged that Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has fallen prey to statistics presented by the officials and has gone by what they told him over the decision to declaring eight districts as drought-hit.

"He should have done this long ago as the situation in Bundelkhand is very bad," Tripathi said, adding that, today the entire state is in a very bad shape and needed to be declared as drought-hit."
"I demand that the government declare the whole state as drought-hit so that steps can be taken up for providing relief to all," he said.