Experts urge overhaul of drought code as Telangana faces growing climate risks | Hyderabad News

Hyderabad: As Telangana grapples with increasingly erratic rainfall, experts say the real challenge is no longer just identifying drought but detecting vulnerability before agricultural stress spirals into a crisis. They argue that India’s drought assessment framework, while comprehensive, remains largely geared towards confirming drought after conditions worsen rather than providing an early warning system for regions already at risk.India’s first national Manual for Drought Management was issued in 2009 and revised in 2016. The current framework, introduced in 2020, broadened the range of indicators used to assess drought, incorporating rainfall, vegetation, soil moisture, cropped area, and hydrological parameters such as groundwater, reservoirs, and stream flow.While states such as Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra have already assessed the drought situation, Telangana is yet to evaluate crop conditions and other parameters after the conclusion of the kharif season.The framework is designed to prevent drought from being declared solely on the basis of below-normal rainfall. States are required to assess multiple indicators and conduct field verification before formally declaring drought.However, experts contend that the system still focuses more on determining whether drought has already set in than on assessing how vulnerable a farming region is to an emerging rainfall shock.The distinction is becoming increasingly important in Telangana, where rainfall variability, dependence on groundwater, cropping choices and rising weather extremes can combine to trigger agricultural distress even before conventional drought indicators breach prescribed thresholds.Agricultural scientist GV Ramanjaneyulu said drought assessment should clearly differentiate between the hazard posed by a rainfall deficit and the vulnerability of the farming system exposed to it.“A weak monsoon is a hazard. But whether it becomes a farming disaster depends on what that rainfall shock encounters — depleted groundwater, degraded soils, unsuitable and water-intensive cropping systems, rising cultivation costs and household debt,” he said.Experts point out that the current system does not bring such underlying vulnerabilities into a single, continuous assessment. As a result, regions with stressed groundwater, degraded soils or heavy dependence on a single crop can suffer far greater damage from the same rainfall deficit than more resilient areas.They propose maintaining a baseline vulnerability assessment for districts and mandals alongside a seasonal drought-risk monitoring system that tracks rainfall, dry spells, soil moisture, vegetation health, and crop conditions.For Telangana, such an approach could help identify high-risk mandals well before crop losses become widespread, allowing authorities to initiate contingency measures such as promoting alternative crops, ensuring seed availability, issuing irrigation advisories, conserving groundwater and extending credit support to farmers.Experts emphasise that this would not replace the existing drought declaration process. Instead, it would add a crucial early warning layer, enabling govt intervention before agricultural distress escalates to the stage of a formal drought declaration.