India's Hindu nationalist-led coalition government yesterday said it would mobilise all its resources to avert the drought affecting over 50 million people across two adjoining western states.
This follows a sustained attack by the opposition for its "feeble" response to the calamity.
The drought has killed off thousands of livestock, caused widespread migration and raised the spectre of famine in the desert regions of Gujarat and Rajasthan.
"The next two or three months are crucial. Whatever resources the centre has will be committed to the drought-affected region," the Agriculture Minister, Mr Sunderlal Patwa, told parliament after a six-hour debate in which opposition MPs berated the government for failing to prevent recurring drought in the states.
Mr Patwa said 23,406 villages in Rajasthan and 9,421 villages in Gujarat state were affected by "conditions of scarcity".
The Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, told parliament that trainloads of animal fodder were being rushed to the affected areas amid calls by members from his own Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to declare the drought a national calamity.
"The situation is terrifying in Rajasthan," Mr Rasa Singh Rawat, a BJP MP from the state, said. Crops had been damaged and the economic situation of the farmers was terrible, he added.
The main opposition Congress party said Rajasthan's Congress administration had informed the federal government last November of the impending drought and repeated its warnings last month.
Meanwhile, thirsty villagers across the worst-affected western Saurashtra and Kutch areas of Gujarat, where over 100 of the 143 dams and reservoirs were either dry or had water for barely a fortnight, clambered into near-dry wells to collect whatever few water drops they could in rubber pouches.
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