Drought-hit Karnataka prays for rain, govt looks to tap cloud seeding route

The last part of the series looks at the situation in the state and steps being taken to address the crisis

Droughts are not new to Karnataka. Between 2001 and 2018, the government declared droughts in different parts of the state in 14 years. Of the 24 districts that face risk of a perennial drought in the country, 16 are in Karnataka, suggests research by the Central Research Institute of Dryland Agriculture. These include the districts of Hassan, Kolar, Davangere, Belagavi, Bagalkot, and Bengaluru Rural.

But, the crop year of 2018-19 was harsher, owing to two consecutive deficit rainfall years, state officials say. A range of economic consequences and crisis followed — a drop in agriculture production and severe lack of drinking water, to count two.

“Up to August 2018, we had declared 45 taluks as drought-affected. But, August onwards, there was not much rain even in catchment and interior areas of the state. So, 100 taluks were declared as drought-affected in the kharif season,” said G S Srinivasa Reddy, director, Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre. “Another 56 taluks have been declared drought-affected in rabi season, taking the total count to 156 of the state’s 176 taluks,” he added.

About 90 per cent of taluks in the state are drought-hit, reflected by water levels of dams. Out of 12 dams, water levels in nine are about 20 per cent, just about sufficient for providing drinking water to people in affected regions. Total storage stands at around 41 TMC against a storage capacity of about 800 TMC.

There is scarcity of drinking water in northern and southern interior districts. “As more than 60 per cent of drinking water comes from ground water sources, a fall in water level due to deficit rainfall has led to scarcity of drinking water in the state,” Reddy said. According to agriculture department officials, with dam water being reserved for drinking water, irrigation has almost stopped. “Since November 2018, the state has decided to rationalise water supply to agriculture from dams. This has led to a situation wherein farmers were not able to sow the rabi crop in irrigated areas,” said an agriculture department official.

Lack of irrigation water and falling ground water level in borewells have led to severe fall in production in major rabi crops. “Crops such as rabi jawar and Bengal gram and even paddy have been severely affected this year,” the official said.

]According to data available with the agriculture department, while close to 600,000 ha remained unsown during rabi season and around 800,000 ha had remained fallow in kharif. “Around 50 per cent of the 6 million ha kharif crop has been damaged, while about 2 million ha of rabi crops were also affected,” the official added. Apart from affecting drinking water availability and agriculture productions, even animal husbandry has been severely impacted due to lack of green fodder.

Amid this raging battle against drought, the state government has taken several initiatives to mitigate the impact. The state is supplying water through tankers to around 2,000 villages of the state. With all barrages on the Krishna having dried up, the state government has also requested the Maharashtra government to release 4 TMC of water, officials said.

“We have also hired borewell with good water level on rent to supply water to affected villages. The owner of these private borewells are receiving around Rs 20,000 per month from the state government,” said Reddy of Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre.

The state has also banned export of fodder, besides opening 21 “goshalas” to take care of cattle. “Fodder banks have been created for cattle and other domestic animals. We are distributing 50 million fodder kits to farmers,” the state officials said.

Additionally, the state aims to provide around 120 million work days under MNREGA this year, compared to 80 million work days in the last. The state is also mulling to tap the cloud seeding route to boost rainfall in the coming rainy season. Reports suggested that the government has already sanctioned Rs 91 crore towards this activity, which is likely to be taken up towards mid-July of this year.

While use of science is on the state’s agenda to avoid a drought-like situation, it is also seeking ‘divine intervention’. Following the Tamil Nadu example, the state government has issued an order last week, asking temples to conduct special “puja” of the rain god for bountiful rains. Temples with sound financial position have been asked to conduct rituals like “abhisheka”, “homas” starting from the early morning of June 6.

Series concludes