When does India declare drought and how is it linked to the monsoon

Here's a lowdown on the process of determining drought as India braces for the southwest monsoon after four surplus-rainfall years

Seven years ago, the cumulative rainfall across India during the June-September southwest monsoon season dropped below 90 per cent of the Long Period Average (LPA) to end at 87.3 per cent.

Thus, 2015 was officially classified as a “deficient” monsoon year.

Since then, there have been no low-rainfall years. On the contrary, the last four years —2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 — were rainfall-surplus years.

However, 2023 could turn out differently as after a gap of four years, the dreaded El Niño phenomenon is set to strike the southwest monsoon season.

To what extent it will cause rainfall deficiency and