The Indian Government is developing a uniform set of scientific criteria for declaring drought in any part of the country to overcome the problems arising out of divergent parameters used by different states.
At present there is no uniformity in the criteria for declaring drought and each state adopts different set of rules, taking into account the agro climatic conditions.
As a result, it often becomes difficult for authorities to assess the authenticity, among other things, of the claims by states for assistance in case of deficient rains.
"Efforts are underway to evolve a uniform criteria for declaring drought in any part of the country", Deputy Director General (National Resource Management), Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), A K Singh told PTI.
The idea is to use the latest scientific inputs on real time basis for parameters related to weather, soil moisture and crop status and evolve an integrated index which can be used for declaring drought, Singh added.
The Ministry of Agriculture and the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), with scientific inputs from National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) and ICAR, are working on
the project, said Singh, who is associated with the task.
The integrated index will have three components: Standard precipitation index (normalised rainfall deviations), Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and water
balance, Singh said.
The exercise is likely to be completed soon and a report would be submitted to the Agriculture ministry for further action, he added.
Despite widespread monsoons this year, there are several areas that have received below normal rains and some of them have been declared drought-hit.
Recently, the governments of Bihar and Jharkhand states in east India have sought for Rs 7,221 crore assistance from the Centre to provide relief to farmers in the two drought-hit
states.
Inter-Ministerial Central Teams have been constituted to visit Bihar and Jharkhand to assess the drought situation and the requirement of Central assistance.