New Delhi: The Centre on Monday said drought has "set in" but Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asked the chief ministers not to panic as the government has enough experience in handling a crisis of this sort.
"There is no need to panic as we have a better understanding of how to handle a crisis like the drought," the Prime Minister said at the special session on drought at the chief ministers meeting on internal security.
The government has decided to hold a regular meeting of the group of ministers to review the situation.
"(The) Group of Ministers will meet on a regular basis and that the ground reality was that the drought has set in," Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was quoted as saying in an official statement.
At the same time, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar asked States to start the relief operations in the drought-affected districts and clamp down on hoarders to ensure that prices do not shoot up while describing the year as a difficult one for both farmers and consumers.
"We have faced problems like this before and now there is much greater elbow room to deal with this drought than in the past. There is adequate wheat and rice stocks in our godowns.
And what is more this time, we have in place livelihood programmes like NREGA and RKVY," the Prime Minister said.
By working collectively, he said, pragmatic and practical solutions can be found and cautioned against sapping the nation's self-confidence.