Revanth’s drought list grew by seven mandals
The Congress government set October 31 as its deadline, then reportedly issued the declaration on October 27. The order still leaves the money to be discovered.
The drought list grew; the relief allocation did not.
The Congress government in Telangana had 358 drought-affected mandals provisionally identified on October 23 and said the identification and declaration process would be completed by October 31. By October 27, the reported final list had grown to 365 mandals across 31 districts: 111 classified as severe and 254 as moderate. The deadline, apparently, was more of a suggestion than a deadline.
The figures behind the declaration are not trivial. Telangana recorded 615.5 mm of rain between June 1 and September 30 against a normal 740.6 mm, a reported deficit of about 17 per cent. Eighteen of the state’s 33 districts recorded deficient rainfall. The reported order also cites reservoir storage of 179.63 TMC against a capacity of 585 TMC. Earlier reports used a different storage comparison — 170 TMC against 470 TMC — and the government has not explained the discrepancy.
The reported relief directions include input subsidy through direct benefit transfer, drinking-water augmentation, fodder arrangements, cattle camps and employment generation. They also refer to agricultural-loan restructuring through the State Level Bankers’ Committee and limits on coercive recovery, subject to Reserve Bank guidelines. But the reports say the order does not specify the input-subsidy amount, a payment schedule, a blanket loan waiver or a clear State budget allocation. A list of mandals is not relief; it is the paperwork before relief.
BRS MLC Dasoju Sravan Kumar has called the handling “criminal negligence” and alleged that a Rs 802.92-crore contingency plan prepared in July was not acted on. Those are political allegations, not established findings. The Telangana government has not publicly answered the specific criticism in the material reviewed. What is established is simpler and damning enough: the government had a provisional list, a stated deadline and then a larger final list, while farmers are still expected to wait for the part involving actual money. The Congress government has managed to declare the drought without declaring what it will cost itself.