In view of the drought situation in Maharashtra, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar has convened a meeting of senior leaders on Saturday. The meet it to prepare a district-wise plan to help drought hit people. Pawar, after casting his vote on April 29, started touring drought-hit villages in western Maharashtra though he had to cut short due to demise of his party's legislator. Pawar, who visited the fodder camps and met villagers, said ''Drought is hovering over Maharashtra. The farmer is worried, the youth do not have work to do." The state government needs to step up drought relief works. State NCP spokesman Nawab Malik said that the party will work to provide relief to drought-hit people. "A detailed roadmap will be decided in Saturday's meeting,'' he said. The state government has already declared drought in 24,000 villages out of 40,913. The total water storage in all government dams has been reported at 19.63% of the total capacity as against 32.6% in 2018. Aurangabad, which covers entire Marathwada is facing the worst situation. It has only 5.27% water storage in its dams as compared to 30.46% last year. The government has deployed 4,594 tankers to supply water to 3,555 villages and 8,183 hamlets affected by drought. The deficit in rainfall in 2018 has adversely damaged loss of crops in the kharif season and it has also affected the rabi crops following drastic fall in the soil and air moisture level. The Maharashtra government has given a farm loan waiver of Rs 24,000 crore to 51 lakh farmers. Under Jalyukt Shivar, five lakh projects have been completed, incurring expenditure of Rs 7,500 crore. What-A-Crisis

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