With drought affecting kharif crop, rice production in Andhra Pradesh is set to fall by more than 40 per cent to 4.87 million tonne in 2009 from 8.38 million tonne in 2008, according to chief minister K Rosaiah.
Explaining the drought conditions to a high level inter-minsiterial central team, headed by Upma Chowdhry, joint secretary (seeds), agriculture ministry, Rosaiah said the state government had declared 981 mandals out of the 1,128 mandals in the state as drought-affected.
The cropped area was down to 6.34 million hectare as against the normal 7.18 million hectare during the kharif season. “By the end of the kharif season, crops in 1.36 million hectare got damaged out of the total sown area,” he said citing advanced estimates of the economics and statistics department.
All major projects in the state received less inflow and only 4.19 tmc water was available in the Sriram Sagar project in August as against the gross storage of 90.31 tmc. Milk production too fell steeply in the state as fodder production reduced by 1.68 million tonne. Also, 12,000 borewells went dry.
Rosaiah said the state had sought a grant of Rs 9,053.19 crore from the National Calamity Contingency Fund to tackle the drought. The state government has so far sanctioned Rs 556.96 crore to meet immediate requirements.
The central team will be divided into five groups and visit districts to assess the situation. It will return to Hyderabad on November 6.
