hyderabad faced with an unprecedented drought in the state the government has decided to discourage farmers from taking up paddy cultivation during the rabi season as it would be difficult to supply water the decision was taken in the cabinet meeting on wednesday where chief minister chandrababu naidu advised his colleagues to launch a campaign to educate farmers on the need to shift to alternative cropsaccordingly the government will take up a poster campaign to educate the farmers disclosing this to reporters information minister s chandramohan reddy said that to encourage farmers to go in for alternative crops the government was making arrangements for supply of bengal gram and sunflower seeds for sowing in black cotton soils in addition district collectors have been authorised to procure and supply suitable varieties of the seed under the contingency cropping programme stating that the recent rain has improved the fodder situation as well as the drinking water levels in some areas he said the government however decided to send two fodderladen trains carrying around 500 metric tonnes each to anantapur district from east godavari district the trains will leave east godavari on fridaythe minister said that the government has received approval for another three lakh tonnes rice from the centre under the foodforwork programme the districtwise allocation of the rice has been fixed and it was decided to fix the rate of rice at a uniform rs 8 per kg in all the districts the minister was however evasive when asked whether the rice would be utilised for taking up new works or for completion of pending ones in the light of new guidelines which make it mandatory for using the rice for new works the rice would be used for pending works wherever necessary but the emphasis would be on taking new works he said explaining that the use of machinery in the new works has been strictly banned