All the 14 districts of Kerala have been declared drought-hit in the wake of a severe shortfall in rainfall during the southwestern and northeastern monsoons which has led to extensive crop loss and acute drinking water shortage. The decision to declare the State as drought-hit was announced in the Assembly on Monday by Revenue Minister E Chandrasekharan.
According to the State Government, the shortfall in showers during the southwestern monsoon from June to September was 34 per cent whereas the rainfall in the northeastern monsoon, which should have been lashing the State currently in the normal course, is expected to be 69 per cent less than normal.
The Government took the decision to declare the State as drought-hit on the basis of a recommendation of the Kerala State Disaster Management Authority which had held a meeting on October 28 to review the monsoons situation. The authority made the recommendation in the context of severe shortage of drinking water across the State and extensive crop loss due to lack of irrigation.
“There was a huge shortfall in showers during southwestern monsoon. As per statistics provided by the India Meteorological Department, the shortfall in the southwestern monsoon was 34 per cent. Drought has affected all the 14 districts. In this situation, a decision has been taken to declare all the 14 districts as drought-hit,” the Revenue Minister told the Assembly while replying to the notice for an adjournment motion moved by the Congress-led UDF Opposition.
The authorities are of the opinion that the State will have to bear the brunt of a drought even if it gets average rainfall in the remaining days of the northeastern monsoon because of the huge shortfall in the June-September season. The shortfall is also threatening the power sector as water-levels in the reservoirs of the hydro-electric projects have dipped alarmingly due to lack of sufficient rains.
According to Revenue officials, the State should have received 60 per cent of the total rainfall of the northeastern monsoon by now but there was a shortfall of 69 per cent. “The monsoon had betrayed Kerala in the past two years. It is in this context that the decision to declare the State as drought-hit was taken in order to avoid a possible climate-induced tragedy,” said a senior official.
With the declaration of all the 14 districts in the State as drought-hit, strict controls may be imposed on consumption of water and a moratorium will come into effect for all the agricultural loans including those availed from cooperative banks. The State Government hopes that the declaration will also help it in getting generous assistance from the Centre.
The Disaster Management Authority had made its recommendation after assessing all the factors relevant to the matter and the Government took the decision to declare all the districts as drought-hit after a gap of four years. It was on December 31, 2012 that the State was declared drought-hit before this.
Moving the notice for the adjournment motion, former minister VS Sivakumar of the Congress pointed out that several regions in the State were in the grip of acute shortage of drinking water, the farmers were facing a difficult situation because of lack of water for irrigating farmlands and that the power situation was becoming graver by the day.
While supplementing Sivakumar’s notice for the motion, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala said that the State Government should make every effort to ensure maximum possible Central assistance for the State to meet the drought situation. “There should be efforts to ensure that a Central team visits Kerala to assess the situation firsthand,” he said.
The Government accepted all the suggestions put forward by the Opposition on the issue and the Opposition in turn offered total cooperation for the Government in facing the drought situation. Though the Speaker refused leave for the motion following Minister Chandrasekharan’s reply, the Opposition did not go for acts of protest like staging a walkout.