State should charge 2 per cent cess on pvt firms to fund drought relief: Dhananjay Munde

Mumbai: The state must impose a  two per cent cess on private companies and corporations in the form of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to fund drought relief measures in Maharashtra only, leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council, Dhananjay Munde said.

Speaking in the upper House on Wednesday, Mr Munde said companies operating in Maharashtra must do more to help in drought assistance while the existing CSR regulations are not good enough to ensure private participation.

Mr Munde had raised the issue of the drought situation in Maharashtra in the upper House. Suggesting the measures to tackle the drought, he said that companies, which have been registered in Maharashtra and the operating units in the state of the companies registered outside of the state, should give two per cent of annual net profit before March 31, 2018 to the government. If needed, the Central and state governments should bring ordinance also.

Underlining the seriousness of the drought in the state, he said that this year’s drought is more severe than the one experienced in 1972. The food grains were not available in 1972, but in present drought, the food grains as well as water is not available. The Kharif crops have been completely lost, the drinking water crises will also take place in couple of months.

“At present, there is no drinking water for the cattle, what will happen in the next eight months,” he asked.      

Since the last four years, the farmers are facing the problems in various forms like demonetisation, pink bollworm, poor Minimum Support Price (MSP) on pulses and now drought, he said.      

Criticising the government over the handling of the drought, the leader of Opposition in Legislative Council said that the government has failed to tackle the drought from the beginning. 70 per cent of the places in the state has not received rain since July. Hence, the drought should have been declared much before.