AMARAVATI, October 5 — The Government of Andhra Pradesh has officially declared 388 mandals spread across 21 districts as drought-hit for the Kharif 2026 agricultural season, following extensive scientific ground-truthing and geospatial evaluation of persistent precipitation deficits.
According to the statutory gazette notification issued by the Revenue (Disaster Management) Department, the declaration was finalized utilizing the standard multi-criteria matrix stipulated in the Union Government's Manual for Drought Management (2016), synthesizing dry-spell durations, satellite-derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and hydrological drawdown metrics. Chronically drought-vulnerable tracts across the Rayalaseema districts—including Anantapur, Sri Sathya Sai, Kurnool, and YSR Kadapa—alongside Prakasam and Nellore, suffered substantial yield damages across rain-fed groundnut, cotton, and pulses acreage.
District Collectors have been instructed to operationalize immediate mitigation frameworks: expediting indemnity settlements under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), executing debt restructuring protocols with State Level Bankers' Committees (SLBC), establishing decentralized cattle fodder camps, and ensuring potable water supply tankers to water-scarce hamlets.
Disaster management protocols, statutory drought classification guidelines, and agrarian distress remedies are recurring topics in APPSC and UPSC GS Paper III (Disaster Management & Agriculture). Candidates should remember that the revised Manual for Drought Management (2016) issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare abolished the traditional 'Annewari' system in favor of mandatory empirical metrics (rainfall deviation, vegetation index, soil moisture, and crop area sown) to classify drought severity.