The state government will decide on declaring its districts as ‘drought hit’ after the meeting of all agriculture ministers in New Delhi on August 21.

This was declared by state Agriculture Minister Dileep Sanghani on Wednesday. Although the state has experienced bounty of monsoon in the first spell, the shadow of drought looms large as crops are “stressed” in most of districts due to low rainfall in the second spell. Gujarat is almost 37 per cent rain deficient, sources said.

“We are expecting some rains in the coming days. If the situation remains the same, we will have to take up some step soon,” said Sanghani.

He added that as the state has received good rains in the first spell, the situation is not very bad and the water table has gone up due to various steps taken by the government.

Experts, however, feel that if there is no rain in the next one week, Gujarat would see a crop failure in the regions where farmers are dependent on rain-fed agriculture.

As per the Meteorological department, only Saurashtra and Kutch have received excess rains in the state this year.

About 18 districts in Gujarat have received less than 50 per cent of rains. Of this, most of the districts are from north and central Gujarat, where farmers are dependent mostly on rain-fed agriculture.

However, some hope is still left. The Meterological department has predicted that the circulation is building up in the Arabian Sea, which would bring rains to south Gujarat by next week.

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