1. Humanitarian Situation
Chhattisgarh state has a rich natural endowment of land, water forest and annual average rainfall of 1350 mm. Recorded documents reveal that state had a past of agricultural abundances comparable with Rice bowl of the Burdwan region of the west Bengal. There were innumerable ponds with tree groves the yielded fruits and other bio products. Chhattisgarh is primarily a mono crop area. Paddy is the principal crop, generally grown in Kharif season. This season starts from mid-June to mid-October. The Rabi crop is generally not taken due to various reasons. The principle factor influencing the issue is that the Rabi season, very little moisture is left in the root zone, temperature rises rapidly by mid-January and soils are light. The soils are reddish brown and devoid of many key nutrients. Rain fall is adequate for growing paddy. In many areas it is more than required. Excess rainfall leads to removal of top soils and nutrients. Due to excess rainfall, in few areas, the crop fails. This is defined as “Paniya Aakal” - drought due to excess rain. There are dry spells in the Kharif season. Due to these dry spells, the crop fails. This leads to drought.
There are many definitions of drought. There are meteorological, agricultural, hydrological and socioeconomic droughts. Meteorological drought is brought when less precipitation than usual, with “less” sometimes quantified. Agricultural droughts are droughts that affect crop production or the ecology of the range. This condition can also arise independently from any change in precipitation levels when soil conditions and erosion triggered by poorly planned agricultural endeavors cause a shortfall in water available to the crops. However, in a traditional drought, it is caused by an extended period of below average precipitation. Other is Hydrologic drought, less water available than usual, typically defined statistically in terms of less than normal streamflow. Then comes the socioeconomic drought, it associates the supply and demand of some economic good with elements of meteorological, hydrological, and agricultural drought. It differs from the aforementioned types of drought because its occurrence depends on the time and space processes of supply and demand to identify or classify droughts. The supply of many economic goods, such as water, forage, food grains, fish, and hydroelectric power, depends on weather. Because of the natural variability of climate, water supply is ample in some years but unable to meet human and environmental needs in other years. Socioeconomic drought occurs when the demand for an economic good exceeds supply as a result of a weather-related shortfall in water supply.
Chhattisgarh had no record of drought, crop failure and consequent scarcity till 1825. the state has its first crop failure in 1828-29 and a greater disaster due to low rainfall during 1832-33-34-35 and 1945. In next 40 years the state faced deficient rainfall 14 years causing crop failure. In eleven years the the area west of the river Mahanadi were affected while in 3 years‟ drought also hit areas like Dhamtari, Raipur, Sarguja, and Sivagaon, when crop failure was at varied scale, price escalation was between 25 and 33 percent and there was loss of life as well. Current drought situation is unprecedented in the region. A historical analysis of rainfall data shows that October rainfall is decreasing in the Chhattisgarh region. Although the quantum of winter rainfall is low, it is sufficient to provide lifesaving moisture to specific crops like linseed and lathyrus. The rains failed in winters, now the rains have failed in July itself (table 2). There has been no sowing of crops in many parts of the state. Even the sown area of the Kharif crop is all but lost. Chhattisgarh is more of a mono-crop area, but now it is critical to save the forthcoming Rabi crop. 25 out of 27 districts in Chhattisgarh are currently suffering the unprecedented harsh effects of severe drought, said to be the worst in 50 years. It is estimated that the drought has affected 1,99,45,901 populations.