Rajahmundry, Sep 22nd: Special Officer on drought to East Godavari district and Commissioner for IT and Communications, Mr.  Sameer Sarma has asked district officials to implement National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGP) in all the 53 drought-hit mandals in the district. Taking part in a review with officials here on Tuesday, the commissioner said that 90 lakh mandays could be provided to wage seekers in the district in the current fiscal and asked special officers in drought hit mandals to work out plans to provide employment accordingly. Collector Gopalakrishna Dwivedi, Joint Collector K. Sasidhar and RDO Ch. Vinaya Mohan accompanied him.

After visiting Kalvacharla and Rajanagaram headquarters, he conducted meeting with officials from agriculture, irrigation, electricity, marketing, civil supplies and revenue. He asked officials to see that Rs.2-a-kg rice was distributed or an equal amount of money given to all agriculture workers. He suggested supply of seed to farmers at subsidized rates keeping in view the rainfall recorded in these mandals. He emphasized taking immediate steps to save farmers who were in need of loans and who were debt-ridden. Mr. Dwivedi said that though the government declared drought-hit areas, the district administration want to review the ground realities and concentrate on dry lands, low-rainfall areas in the district. He clarified that there was no dearth of funds.