Maha ministers to get to 'ground' reality, tour drought-hit Marathwada for a day

Mumbai: Maharashtra ministers will undertake a day-long tour of 29 talukas of drought-affected Beed, Latur and Osmanabad districts on Friday, where they will take a stock of the ground situation and submit a report to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. [caption id=“attachment_2654182” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Devendra Fadnavis. PTI[/caption] The state administration has already sent out notices to concerned departments and authorities of the three districts informing them about the itinerary and the agenda of the visits of the ministers. Most of the Ministers, including Ministers of State will leave for three districts on Thursday. The only exception is Fadnavis himself and Minister for Revenue, Eknath Khadse who will stay put in Latur. However, the Minister of State for Industries, Pravin Pote-Patil has been allocated Umerga tehsil in Osmanabad district. Speaking to reporters here Pravin said that he would be going to Umerga on Thursday itself and to drought-hit areas where the situation is turning worse. Later, in the evening on March 4 (Friday), Fadnavis will hold a meeting of all the ministers at Latur to review the situation based on reports submitted by his colleagues. Before that, the Ministers are expected to visit the taluka and assess the situation in respect of drinking water supply in both rural and urban areas, cattle fodder camps, availability of cattle fodder, crop damage, disbursal of relief aid and other related issues. Prominent among the ministers who have been tasked to undertake the tour include – Sudhir Mungantiwar (Beed), Pankaja Munde (Georai), Diwakar Raote (Ambejogai), Chandrashekhar Bawankule (Kaij), Eknath Shinde (Parli), Vinod Tawde (Osmanabad), Prakash Mehta (Vashi), Subhash Desai (Paranda), Vishnu Savara (Latur), Vidya Thakur (Renapur) and others. Meanwhile, sources in the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unit said that following this ministers’ tour, the party will depute its elected representatives and party office bearers across the drought-affected talukas to monitor relief work and help people till the next monsoon arrives. PTI