Telangana starts Rs 150 crore drought pilot in three mandals; drought-hit areas to be declared by 31 October

The pilot is supported by funds from the National Disaster Management Fund. The disaster management department will supervise the project, and the agriculture department will be the nodal agency. The stated aims are better use of water, farming practices that can withstand dry years, and less economic hardship for farmers during droughts.

The minister has also told officials to set up village-level and mandal-level committees and to hold gram sabhas in every village, so that the plan is shaped with local farmers and not only from Hyderabad.

How bad the dry spell is

The numbers are stark, though the reports differ on some of them. The Agriculture Minister, Tummala Nageswara Rao, said last week that drought-like conditions prevailed in 315 mandals. Other reports have put the figure at between 215 and 235 mandals, and the rainfall deficit is quoted as either 17 per cent or 23 per cent. A preliminary assessment has flagged 358 mandals as potentially affected, which is why the committee's list on 31 October matters, because the declaration decides who qualifies for relief. In India a formal drought declaration usually opens the door to relief from the State Disaster Response Fund, to input subsidies for farmers, and to measures such as the rescheduling of crop loans. A mandal that is left out of the list can miss all of this, so the criteria and the speed of the committee's work will be watched closely.

Reservoirs tell the same story. Storage in the Krishna basin is reported to be about 72 per cent lower than last year, and storage in the Godavari basin about 40 to 42 per cent lower. A normal year would have around 462 tmc across all reservoirs at this point, and the state has about 200 tmc. Of more than 21,500 tanks being monitored, nearly 17,700 held less than half their capacity in early October, and close to 13,000 had dried up or held less than a quarter of normal levels.

On 15 October, Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy asked farmers to defer one crop cycle, mainly the water-hungry Yasangi paddy, to protect drinking water. He compared the threat from El Nino to the Covid pandemic in its seriousness. The Yasangi crop is sown in the winter and harvested in the summer, so a decision to skip it removes the heaviest demand on the state's irrigation water at the time when reservoirs will be at their lowest. About 53 lakh acres were planted with paddy this season, while farmers kept away from paddy on around 13 lakh acres. He said agricultural labourers who lose work would be compensated through the VB-G RAM G scheme, with the work focused on irrigation and water-conservation structures.

The state has also gone to the Centre. At a video conference chaired by Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the Agriculture Minister sought immediate Central assistance, procurement of maize, jowar, pulses, oilseeds and other crops at the minimum support price, and the removal of the 25 per cent procurement cap under the Price Support Scheme. He also asked for more money for the VB-G RAM G scheme, with priority for farm ponds and water conservation, and for rationalised fertiliser prices.

A low-pressure system over the Bay of Bengal is forecast to bring heavy rain to parts of Telangana in the next few days. The rain may help, but it will not refill reservoirs that are this far below normal. District collectors have been urging farmers and residents to save water, and several have asked for conservation to be treated as the first priority until the winter crop season is settled.