Draught Affected States

Most of the drought-prone areas are found in arid, semi-arid, and sub-humid regions of the country, which experience less than average annual rainfall. Broadly, the drought-affected areas in India can be divided into two tracts. The first tract comprising the desert and the semi-arid regions covers an area of 0.6 million sq. km. It is rectangle shaped area whose one side extends from Ahmedabad to Kanpur and the other from Kanpur to Jullundur. In this region, rainfall is less than 750mm and at some places it is even less than 400 mm. The second tract comprises the regions east of the Western Ghats up to a distance of about 300 km from coast. Known as the rain shadow area of the Western Ghats, rainfall in this region is less than 750mm and is highly erratic. This region is thickly populated and periodic droughts cause considerable suffering and distress.

Besides these two tracts of scarcity, there are many pockets of drought in India. Some of these are :

Together, these scattered pockets occupy an area of 0.1 million sq. km. Drought is a recurrent phenomenon in Andhra Pradesh where no district is entirely free of droughts.

Rajasthan is one of the most drought prone areas of India. Eleven districts of the state are in arid regions including Jaisalmer as the driest district. No perennial river flows in Jaisalmer. Groundwater level in the district is 125–250 ft deep and at some places 400 ft deep. The rainfall in the district is extremely low at 164 mm. Out of 365 days of a year, on an average 355 days are dry.

The total area which receives inadequate rainfall is just over one million sq. km. The regions with rainfall less than 400mm occupy 12% of the total geographical area, and the area below 750mm rainfall is 35% or a little over a third of the country. Thus out of the total gross cultivated area of the country, 56 million ha is subject to inadequate and highly variable rainfall.

Large areas in the four states that utilize Narmada water falls in arid and semi-arid regions. As shown in Table 8, nearly 57% of Rajasthan and 32% of Gujarat falls in arid zone. Also, nearly 61% of Maharashtra and 46% of the area of Gujarat is semi-arid. This shows how important it is for these states to properly use available water.

Period	Drought years	Number of years
1801 - 1850	1801, 04, 06, 12, 19, 25, 32, 33, 37	9
1851 - 1900	1853, 60, 62, 66, 68, 73, 77, 91, 99	9
1901 - 1950	1901, 04, 05, 07, 11, 13, 15, 18*, 20, 25, 39, 41	12
1951 - 2003	1951, 65, 66, 68, 72, 74, 79, 82, 85, 87*, 2002	11

*Indicates severe drought (>39.5% area affected), ** Phenomenal drought year (> 47.7% area).

S. N.	Year	Percentage of affected area in India	Category
1	1951	33.2	Moderate
2	1952	25.8	Slight
3	1965	42.9	Moderate
4	1966	32.3	Moderate
5	1968	20.6	Slight
6	1969	19.9	Slight
7	1971	13.3	Slight
8	1972	44.4	Severe
9	1974	29.3	Moderate
10	1979	39.4	Moderate
11	1982	33.1	Moderate
12	1985	30.1	Moderate
13	1986	19.0	Slight
14	1987	49.2	Severe
15	2002	Areas in 14 States	Severe

Probability of occurrence of drought in different meteorological sub division.

Meteorological sub division	Frequency of deficient rainfall (75% of normal or less)
Assam	Very rare, once in 15 years
West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Konkan, Bihar and Orissa	Once in 5 years
South Interior Karnataka, Eastern Uttar Pradesh and Vidarbha	Once in 4 years
East Rajasthan, Gujarat and Western Uttar Pradesh	Once in 3 years
West Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Jammu & Kashmir and Telangana	Once in 2.5 years

Statewise area of arid and semi -arid zones

State	Area (km²)
State	Arid	Semi-arid
Gujarat	62,180 (31.72)	90,520 (46.18)
Madhya Pradesh	-	59,470 (13.41)
Maharashtra	1,290 (0.42)	189,580 (61.61)
Rajasthan	196,150 (57.31)	121,020 (35.396)

Note: figures inside brackets represent the % of the area of the state under that category.