INDIAN MANDALA India in the grip of drought but with less compensation for farmers

The problem affects crops kharif, those that are planted during the monsoon period. Currently the rains are scarce, but those who suffered bad harvests last year have not received help from the government, unlike in the past. The cause lies in the changes that were introduced in the national drought management manual, which made it more difficult to declare a state of emergency.

Milan () – The lack of rain and the delay of the monsoon season in India have delayed the planting of crops kharif, that is, those that are carried out during the monsoon period, between June and August, such as rice, corn and soybeans. At least 14 of the major agricultural states They “lack” rainfall, and Indian farmers, now “on a hang-over”, are considering whether to switch to short-term crops to avoid replanting after losing a crop.

These are direct consequences of climate change – India’s vulnerability to drought is equal to that of sub-Saharan Africa – but they could worsen as a result of Indian government decisions. He last yearFour Indian states – Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Bihar – reported very little rainfall, with rainfall more than 70% below normal in some districts. After India suffered a famine in 1966, agriculture – a sector in which 45% of the population works – began to develop groundwater extraction systems, but the reservoirs were depleted, adding hydrological drought to meteorological drought.

Another problem they point out some authors is that in the future the periods of drought, instead of lasting one season, could last several years in a row, a fact that so far only happened once, between 1985 and 1987. Current palliative policies still do not foresee the possibility of multi-annual droughts .

The 2022 monsoon season was the driest on record, and entire crops of kharif they suffered severe damage. But if farmers had received compensation from the central government before, this was not the case last year, because declaring a state of natural disaster is a prerequisite for receiving aid from Delhi.

But it was not a mistake by the local governments: in 2016, the Ministry of Agriculture revised the National Drought Management Manual, adopted stricter criteria and made it bureaucratically difficult to declare an emergency. In addition, while previously individual states could request assistance from the National Disaster Relief Fund for moderate and severe droughts, since 2016 it has only been possible to do so for the most extreme weather events.

the digital diary scroll found that Uttar Pradesh – governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the same party as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in power since 2014 – has precisely avoided declaring a state of drought in several districts, despite official and farmer reports made you eligible to apply for relief funds. In Jharkhand, by contrast, vulnerable conditions were documented and reported to the central government in October, but compensation has yet to arrive.

Prior to 2016, a state could declare drought status based on several criteria, including, in addition to rainfall levels, soil moisture and acreage. Now, however, a two-stage process is required: first, drought can be declared when rainfall is below the normal level; Next, state and district officials must make an assessment by collecting data on four parameters: planted area, crop condition, soil moisture level, and water level. The severe drought state, the only one for which compensation is currently awarded, is only recognized if three or four parameters are below a certain threshold, while moderate drought only requires two. But some states are not even allowed to measure them. In Jharkhand, for example, a local official explained: “We do not use the soil moisture index in the drought declaration because we do not control for it. Other data is available at the state level, but not at the district or village level, as required by the central government. This would require systems that would take at least four to five years to put in place. Not to mention the tribal areas, where in many villages the Adivasis (the socially, politically and economically marginalized indigenous peoples of India) do not even know that there is the possibility of requesting compensation from the government. study conducted two years ago on the difference between detected and declared droughts shows a higher probability of surveying data in central India.

Of those who were able to submit an application last year and have it confirmed (about 300,000 people), half are still waiting for payment, and almost a year later the banks are still processing the applications. These administrative failures are even more serious when reading last year’s report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which stated that the increase in drought in the coming years “will have a negative impact on the availability and prices of food, which will cause an increase in malnutrition in South and Southeast Asia”.

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