Drought: State govt calls for manual verification

MUMBAI: The Maharashtra government has received a report from the National Centre for Crop Forecasting (NCCF) that will help it identify areas affected by water scarcity. Drought can be declared in these areas following manual verification also called ground truthing (GT).

The state government has now directed the divisional commissioners of all regions to start manual verification (ground truthing) in their respective regions and submit their reports in the next eight days.

NCCF is an agency that works under the Union agriculture ministry. It aims to provide in-season crop forecasts and assessment of the drought situation using stateof-the-art techniques and methodologies developed by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It has been made mandatory on part of the state governments to consider the NCCF report while declaring drought as per the fresh National Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF) norms.

Water is scarce in at least 20,000 of the state’s 40,559 villages across 201 tehsils, as they received less than 75% of the average required rainfall.

“The state is now assessing the NCCF report. We have directed the divisional commissioners to start GT in their respective areas,” said state chief secretary Dinesh Kumar Jain. The state will send its report to the Central government seeking financial assistance to tackle the calamity.

WATER IS SCARCE IN AT LEAST 20,000 OF THE STATE’S 40,559 VILLAGES ACROSS 201 TEHSILS