More taluks in Vijayapura dist. likely to be added to list of drought-hit taluks, says Minister
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The State government is likely to add more taluks in Vijayapura district to the list of drought-hit taluks, district in-charge Minister M.B. Patil said in Vijayapura on Sunday.
He was responding to demands that Indi, Chadachan, and Talikote taluks be declared as drought-hit.
Officials are taking all necessary steps to include all taluks in the State that have suffered rainfall scarcity, in accordance with the evaluation criteria outlined in the Drought Management Manual 2020.
Mr. Patil, Minister for Large and Medium Industries, said, “The guidelines mandate 11 criteria including rainfall scarcity, humidity, satellite data and field inspections. Field studies are under way and will be completed by Monday. The State government will issue a notification later. All deserving taluks of Vijayapura are likely to be included.”
The Minister said there were several stages involved in declaring taluks as drought-hit. Eligible taluks are identified through a comprehensive drought assessment (categorised as moderate or severe) conducted at the government level, based on criteria such as a continuous dry spell of three weeks and impact indicators derived from satellite and remote sensing data.
This assessment is presented to the Cabinet sub-committee chaired by the Deputy Chief Minister. Once the sub-committee approves the list of taluks, a notification is issued to proceed to the next stage: ground truthing (field verification).
A field verification in the notified taluks is carried out using the ‘Ground Truthing’ mobile app. Officials from the agriculture, horticulture, and revenue departments will conduct a crop loss assessment within four days for survey numbers in villages randomly selected through the ‘Ground Truthing’ app. Based on the ground-truthing report, the taluk is classified as either moderately or severely drought-affected. This classification is then presented to the Cabinet, leading to the issuance of the final drought notification.
In our district, the ground-truthing process has been completed for the taluks listed in the first and second batches—namely Vijayapura, Kolhar, Nidagundi, Basavana Bagewadi, Babaleshwar, and Tikota—and the government has officially declared them as severely drought-affected.
Sindagi, Alamela, Devara Hippargi, and Muddebihal taluks have been notified for ground truthing, and the process is currently under way. The Minister stated that the ground-truthing work for these four taluks would be completed by Monday, after which the government would issue the final notification regarding their status, he said, according to a release.
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