New Delhi: Maharashtra has become the second state after Karnataka to declare a drought.
On Friday, the state government identified 14,708 out of 40,053 villages, where the monsoon was deficient by over 50%, as drought-hit, according to its relief and rehabilitation department.
“We have finished the initial estimation of crop loss in these villages. A final estimation will be completed by the end of October after which the state will submit a memorandum to the centre seeking financial assistance,” said Ashok Atram, deputy secretary of the state’s relief and rehabilitation department.
The drought-hit villages are spread across 20 of the 35 districts in the state, including all eight districts of the Marathwada region.
The districts are Gadchiroli, Nagpur, Akola, Yavatmal, Aurangabad, Parbhani, Latur, Nanded, Beed, Jalna, Osmanabad, Hingoli, Pune, Satara, Sangli, Nashik, Dhule, Nandurbar, Jalgaon and Ahmednagar.
Land revenue due from farmers will be waived along with 33% of the electricity charges towards agricultural purposes, Atram said, adding that a decision on restructuring farm credit will be taken later.
This is the second straight year of drought for Maharashtra where the June-September south-west monsoon was deficient by 27%. Last year, Maharashtra declared a drought in November in more than 19,000 villages.
Maharashtra has recorded 2,234 farmer suicides between January and September, according to data from the state revenue department.
For the entire country, the south-west monsoon, which irrigates over half of the farm land during the kharif season, recorded a deficit of 14%, increasing farm distress. In 2014, the shortfall was 12%.
Nationwide, the rain-deficit districts are concentrated in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Gujarat, eastern Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh. However, except for Karnataka and now Maharashtra, none of the other states has declared a drought so far.
For instance, 216 of 459 mandals (blocks) in Telangana recorded scanty rainfall but the state is yet to notify a drought. In Uttar Pradesh, 68 of 71 districts saw deficit rains and the state-wide deficit was 46% of the long-period average.
In August, Karnataka declared a drought in 27 of 30 districts and sought central assistance of Rs.3,050 crore.
In April, Prime Minister Narendra Modi increased the compensation for crop damage by 50%, and relaxed norms: farmers in areas with at least 33% crop damage are now eligible for compensation, up from the earlier criterion of 50% damage. However, unless a state declares a drought and the centre assesses the damage, none of these relief measures kick in.
“States shy away from declaring a drought as they will be held accountable,” said Himanshu, an associate professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and a Mint columnist. “In Karnataka and Maharashtra, pressure had built up from people to take note of the drought. Unfortunately, this is missing in Uttar Pradesh,” he explained.
Himanshu added that the centre rarely declares a national-level drought but it can go ahead and take steps to stem farm distress in rural India. These could take the form of higher expenditure through public works programmes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, a moratorium on interest payments on farm credit, and some form of price support.
The drought in Maharashtra and other parts of the country is expected to dent production of rain-fed crops such as pulses—prices of which are already soaring—alongside soyabean, cotton and coarse grains.
According to the first advance estimate released by the farm ministry on 16 September, monsoon-dependent kharif output of foodgrain is likely to drop to 124 million tonnes (mt) in 2015, compared with 126.3 mt last year.
Rainfall deficit will impact demand in rural India, said a Crisil Research report released last week. “Already rural incomes are dented due to falling wage growth. Add three consecutive monsoon shocks and what you get is a significant erosion in farm income,” the report said, adding that falling export prices of agricultural commodities like rice and wheat have added to the distress.
The report went on to caution that the shortfall in rain also means lower reservoir levels, which do not augur well for the upcoming rabi (winter) crop, sowing for which begins in October.