THE rainfall activity in the past few days over the northern India may have brought some smile on the face of the farming community, but the drought situation across the country has further deepened with 246 districts having been declared as drought affected. This means more than 40 per cent of total districts in the country are facing a drought-like situation.

According to information available with the Agriculture Ministry, 246 of the total 304 districts in 10 states have been declared to be facing drought-like situation as on Tuesday.

In fact, in the 10 states — Assam (27 districts), Jharkhand (24), Himachal (12), Manipur (9), Nagaland (11), UP (58), Bihar (26), Karnataka (20), Maharashtra (22) and Madhya Pradesh (37) — over 80 per cent of the districts are facing drought-like situation.

The seriousness of the situation found voice in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who acknowledged the “impending drought” situation while addressing the National Conference of State Ministers of Environment and Forest in the capital on Tuesday. “We are staring at the prospect of an impending drought,” the Prime Minister said, highlighting the challenges of climate change.

The number of affected districts has grown steeply — by more than a hundred — in a matter of just days. On August 8, during the meeting of State Chief Secretaries, the Prime Minister had acknowledged drought in 141 districts.

The worsening situation was discussed during the Chief Ministers’ conference on Internal Security on Monday, where the Prime Minister said that the country had “greater elbow room” to tackle the problem as this was not the first time that country was facing such a situation.

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