No more ‘droughts’ in India, says IMD

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has officially expunged the word “drought” from its vocabulary, months after it struck a contrarian note and correctly forecast one of India’s severest monsoon deficits last year.

• The move is part of a decision to do away with or re-define terms that are not scientifically precise.

• Beginning this season, for instance, if India’s monsoon rainfall were to dip below 10 per cent of the normal and span between 20 and 40 per cent of the country’s area, it would be called a “deficient” year instead of an “All India Drought Year” as the IMD’s older manuals would say.

• A more severe instance, where the deficit exceeds 40 per cent and would have been called an “All India Severe Drought Year,” will now be a“Large Deficient Year”.

• The agency had several definitions of drought: meteorological, hydrological and agricultural, and it was quite possible for a State to have a meteorological drought — 90 per cent shortfall of the average monsoon rainfall — but not suffer an agricultural drought —if the shortfall didn’t affect more than 20 per cent of the State’s area.

• The decision to tweak the terminology comes at a time when India is facing the fallout of its worst monsoon in six years, with a 14% rain deficit.

• A total of 302 districts across India—nearly half the total number in the country—received at least 20% less rainfall than normal in 2015