The first big test for new Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar is coping with what is turning out to be Karnataka’s worst drought in the last four decades. With a rainfall deficit of around 40 per cent, there is an acute shortage of potable water and animal fodder, depleting reserves in reservoirs and failure of crops. “The situation is not comfortable at all. We are monitoring it very carefully,” said Mr V.S. Prakash, director of the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Management Centre.
The government is supplying potable water through tankers to 713 villages and 249 wards in urban areas including Bengaluru Rural, Kolar, Ramanagaram, Bijapur and Belgaum, said an officer from the Revenue Department. According to figures available with the drought cell of the Revenue Department, out of the total sown area of 74 lakh hectares in the State, farmers could sow only 20 lakh hectares this year as there was no rain in the first half of the south-west monsoon that arrives in May and lasts till September. The fate of even the sown crop is not known.
“The Agriculture Department is sending weekly advisories to farmers to switch the crop pattern and sow alternative crops instead of long range crops like paddy and ragi, which are sown in May,” said an official source. The fodder situation too is bleak. Fodder is available for only for 11 weeks and in some districts like Chikkaballapur, Chitradurga, Shimoga, Hassan and Bidar, fodder stocks may last for just four to five weeks, the source added.