Verification Versus Velocity: Who Should Carry the Cost of Drought?

Verify Quickly, Pay Promptly, Conserve Seriously

The tension India's drought framework is built to answer two questions that pull against each other.

The first is whether a drought is real and as severe as a State says. The second is how fast help reaches the farmer whose crop has already failed. Answering the first carefully slows down the second. That is the tension behind Karnataka's request for Rs 11,000 crore from the National Disaster Response Fund.

The case for the Centre's caution Drought declarations were once highly subjective and States had reasons to declare as many areas as possible to attract central money.

The Manual for Drought Management, first issued in 2009 and revised since, changed that. It requires:

• a mandatory rainfall-deficit trigger; - an assessment of impact indicators such as crop sowing, soil moisture and hydrology; - for severe drought, a visit by an Inter-Ministerial Central Team to verify conditions on the ground before NDRF funds are recommended. The NDRF supplements a State's own disaster fund, to which the Centre already contributes 75% for most States. Verification protects public money from inflated claims. It also protects the credibility of the system for every State that asks honestly.

The case for the States' urgency A drought is not an earthquake.

It damages slowly, but its costs land all at once at harvest. Karnataka has declared 217 of its 240 taluks drought-hit, with heavy losses in red gram, maize, cotton and sugarcane. Andhra Pradesh has declared 388 of 688 mandals, with horticulture on nearly 18,000 hectares at risk.

Every week of delay pushes farmers toward moneylenders. Delay has happened before: in 2024, Karnataka had to approach the Supreme Court over withheld drought relief and the Centre then released Rs 3,454 crore. When verification becomes a reason to wait rather than a step to complete, cooperative federalism turns into a contest.

TAN's position TAN's position is that verification should be firm and fast and that funds should follow it without discretion.

Once an IMCT has completed its assessment and its findings are made public, the Centre should release NDRF support within a fixed timeline. That removes both the suspicion of inflated claims and the suspicion of political delay.

That is only half the bargain. Agriculture and water are State subjects and both Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have so far relied on advisories and incentives for micro-irrigation and less water-intensive crops, not binding limits.

A State that asks the Union for drought money should be ready to show binding rules on groundwater extraction and water use.

What would change our view If IMCT reports repeatedly showed large gaps between declared and verified damage, the case for slower, stricter scrutiny would strengthen.

Absent such evidence, delay after verification serves no one. Over the longer term, TAN holds that sustainable groundwater use, cropping matched to local rainfall and broader crop insurance offer more protection than mega-projects like river interlinking, which are slower and riskier.

With the IPCC warning that drought-like conditions will spread across South Asia, droughts will return. India should not have to argue over who pays every time.