New Delhi: Congress president Sonia Gandhi on August 5 demanded declaring the drought in some parts of the country as a national calamity and sought enhancement of the corpus of the National Calamity Relief Fund to a minimum of Rs 10,000 crore to tackle the grave situation.

Gandhi along with party Chief Ministers S M Krishna (Karnataka), Ajit Jogi (Chattisgarh) and Ashok Gehlot (Rajasthan) met Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and presented him a memorandum making the demand.

Suggesting that an inter-ministerial crisis management group be set up as was done in the 1987 drought, she wanted creation of an all-party committee on drought management to discuss the management of relief plans.

Gandhi had held a meeting with six party Chief Ministers on August 4 on the drought situation after which the party had alleged step-motherly treatment from the Centre to the party-ruled states.

In the memorandum, the party also sought the convening of a special meeting of the National Development Council to discuss the drought situation, sending of special teams to all affected states and provision for free transportation of fodder and water by the Railways to the drought-affected areas.

PTI