With rainfall less than normal, kharif crops are the most affected as they are cultivated during the monsoon season. Among farmers, many of those who had poor harvests last year are still waiting for government aid. Unlike the past, changes in the National Manual for Drought Management have made it harder to declare a state of drought.

Milan (AsiaNews) – Less than normal rainfall and the late onset of the monsoons are forcing Indian farmers to put off the sowing of kharif crops, like rice, corn, and soya beans, which grow during the monsoon period between June and August.

At least 14 major farming states are experiencing a rain shortfall. This is forcing local growers to wait before planting, pondering whether to switch to short-term crops to avoid reseeding after a crop loss.

As a result of climate change, India is as vulnerable to drought as sub-Saharan Africa but decisions taken by the Indian government have made matters worse.

Last year, four Indian states – Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Bihar – received very little rainfall, more than 70 per cent below normal in some districts.

Following the outbreak of famine in 1966, India began to develop its groundwater resources to support a sector, agriculture, that still employs about 45 per cent of the labour force. Now, however, belowground aquifers are running dry.

With a hydrological drought compounding a meteorological drought, the future is dim. As some observers have noted, coming droughts will likely last years rather than single seasons. In recent memory, this happened only once, between 1985 and 1987.

And existing mitigation policies do not yet take into account multi-year droughts. The 2022 monsoon season was the driest ever, severely damaging kharif crops.

Until a few years ago, farmers received compensation from the central government – not last year, as Delhi did not declare a state of natural disaster, which is a prerequisite for federal aid.

This was not a mistake by state governments, but the result of a change in policy. In 2016 the Ministry of Agriculture revised the Manual for Drought Management, introducing more stringent criteria, making it harder to declare an emergency.

In addition, if before individual states could apply to the National Disaster Relief Fund in case of moderate and severe drought, this has not been possible for the past seven years as only extreme weather events now apply.

Scroll, an Indian news website, found that Uttar Pradesh – ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party – chose not to declare a state of drought in several districts, despite official documents and farmers' accounts suggested that it was eligible for assistance funds.

In Jharkhand, local vulnerabilities have been documented and reported to the central government last October, but no compensation has arrived.

Before 2016, a state could declare a state of drought based on several criteria, like rainfall, soil moisture and sown crop area.

Now, a two-step process has to be followed. First, if rainfall is below the normal level, state and district officials must carry out an assessment by collecting data on four parameters: sown area, crop conditions, soil moisture, and water levels in storage structures.

Severe drought, the only one that pays out compensation, requires at least three parameters, while two are needed for moderate droughts.

Unfortunately, some states lack the means to collect the data. In Jharkhand, for example, a local official said: “We don’t use soil moisture index in drought declaration, because we don’t monitor that.”

In some cases, statewide data are available, but not at the district or village level, which is what the central government demands. Some estimate that it would take four to five years to set up the necessary infrastructure for this to happen.

For India’s socially, politically, and economically marginalised indigenous people, the Adivasis, things are far worse because they are largely unaware of their right to apply for government compensation.

A study two years ago comparing detected to reported droughts shows a higher detection in central India. Of those who successfully applied for compensation last year, about 300,000 people, half are still waiting for their cheques. Almost a year later, the banks are still processing applications.

Bureaucratic failures are going to get worse. In its 2022 assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that droughts “will have adverse impacts on food availability and the prices of food, resulting in increased undernourishment in South and Southeast Asia”.

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• india
• climate change
• drought
• monsoons
• crop failure
• famine
• natural disasters