The Centre today said it has released Rs 12,000 crore to the States under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Guarantee Act,MGNREGA in the rural areas to mitigate the impact of prevailing drought situation. Intervening in a discussion on the drought situation in the country, Rural Development Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh said in the Lok Sabha that the amount has been released for the months of April to June to the drought hit states for creating jobs under MGNREGA.The Minister said, currently 313 District of the country are facing drought like situation and 24 crore of the population in the areas are affected. <br/><br/>He said, the government is also implementing a World Bank assisted Neeranchal National Watershed Project at a cost of over two thousand crore rupee to promote water conservation in the country.Mr Singh said, the government has taken several steps to regenerate the traditional water bodies for water conservation. <br/><br/>The Minister also informed the House that an additional five hundred sixty four crore rupees have also been released to affected States.He said, the current year's budget higher allocation of fund has been made for MGNREGA and it is 6000 core rupees more than the previous year of 37 thousand crore rupees. During Minister's intervention, the Congress members who were on a dharna in the well of the House started sloganeering. The Minister continued his speech amidst the din.<br/><br/>Earlier, participating in the debate,Aparupa Poddar of TMC demanded release of funds from the National Disaster Response Force to the West Bengal to mitigate the problems faced by farmers.Chandrakant Khaire of Shiv Sena demanded the government to waive off the farmers' loan. He also demanded that the compensation paid to the kin of farmers' committing suicide should be increased from from one lakh to five lakh rupees. <br/><br/>Bhartruhari Mahtab of BJD also demanded the release of required funds to Odisha in view of the drought like situation in the State. He said, the interlinking of rivers should be carried out within the State as water is a state subject while suggesting that there is a need to have a proper water plan. A P Jithender Reddy of TRS demanded the release of rest of the funds for Telangana to mitigate the impact of drought.