Maha declares drought in 151 talukas in 26 districts

The Maharashtra government Wednesday declared drought in 151 talukas in 26 of total 36 districts in the state.

As per a government order, 112 talukas are facing severe drought and 39 talukas a moderate drought.

The 26 districts comprise eight districts each in the Vidarbha and the Marathwada regions, five districts in North Maharashtra, four districts in western Maharashtra and Palghar district in the coastal Konkan region.

Among all 26 districts, the moderate and severe drought overlap in many talukas.

Jalgaon district in the north Maharashtra consists of 13 talukas that are reeling under severe drought, followed by Ahmednagar and Beed (11 talukas each), Solapur and Aurangabad districts (9 talukas each).

Other districts are: Pune, Sangli, Satara, Palghar, Dhule, Nandurbar, Nashik, Jalna, Nanded, Parbhani, Osmanabad, Hingoli, Latur, Akola, Amravati, Buldhana, Washim, Yavatmal, Chandrapur, Nagpur and Wardha.

On October 23, the state government had declared that 180 talukas were facing drought-like conditions.

"The ground truthing/verification was done and based on indicators of rainfall deficit, reservoir storage, ground water index, soil moisture, the drought was declared," a Revenue department official said.

The opposition Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) had accused the BJP-led government of shirking its responsibility by not declaring drought in the state and hiding behind vague terminology such as "drought-like" or "scarcity-like" conditions.