Andhra declares drought in 21 districts after a 53.4 percent rain shortfall

The Andhra Pradesh government has declared a drought in 21 of the state's 28 districts for the 2026 kharif season. The order, from the Revenue (Disaster Management) Department, is dated 1 October and was reported on Thursday. It covers 388 mandals. Of those, 283 are classed as severely affected and 105 as moderately affected. The state received 197.6 millimetres of rain between 1 June and 31 August, against a normal 424.3 millimetres. That is a deficit of 53.4 percent.

Declarations of this kind are usually made at the end of October, once the monsoon has actually finished. This one arrived at the start of the month. The government order attributes the shortfall to El Niño, the warming of the equatorial Pacific that has repeatedly lined up with a weaker southwest monsoon over India. The kharif season runs from June to October. A declaration now, rather than after the harvest numbers are in, is an administrative choice to start relief before the usual calendar point.

Which districts, and what the categories mean

The 21 districts named in the order are Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, Anakapalli, Kakinada, East Godavari, Eluru, Krishna, NTR, Guntur, Bapatla, Palnadu, Prakasam, Markapuram, Kurnool, Nandyal, Ananthapuramu, Sri Sathya Sai, YSR Kadapa, Annamayya and Chittoor. The list runs from the north coast through the Krishna and Godavari deltas and into Rayalaseema. The seven districts left off the declaration are the ones that, on the state's own rainfall test, did not cross the threshold.

Severe and moderate are not adjectives in this order. They are the two buckets the disaster department uses to decide which mandals qualify for which relief. A mandal in the severe list is a candidate for the fuller set of measures: input subsidy for crop loss, waiver or deferral of certain dues, and employment under the rural jobs programme where the field has failed. A mandal in the moderate list is still inside the declaration, but the package is thinner. The split, 283 to 105, is the figure a district collector will use when a farmer asks why a neighbouring mandal received a different order.

What a drought declaration actually releases

A state drought declaration is the document that lets the revenue department spend from the relief head and that lets the state ask the Centre for assistance from the national disaster funds. It does not, by itself, put money in a bank account. The next papers are crop-cutting results, bank lists of crop loans, and mandal-level orders that name the villages. Farmers who sowed in June on the assumption of a normal 424 millimetres have already taken the loss. The declaration is the state's agreement that the loss meets the official test.

The timing matters for credit. A declaration dated 1 October can be cited by a farmer when a bank asks why a kharif loan is unpaid in November. A declaration dated 31 October arrives after some of those conversations have already happened. That is the practical reason an early order is different from a late one, even when the rainfall numbers are the same.

The figure that can be checked

The number that will decide whether this order holds up is not the political argument about El Niño. It is the 197.6 against 424.3, and the mandal list behind it. If later India Meteorological Department station data for June to August disagree with the state average by a wide margin, collectors will be asked to explain individual mandals. If the station data agree, the argument moves to the size of the subsidy and to how fast the 283 severe mandals are processed. The coast and the deltas are on the list with the dry interior. That is the fact that makes this declaration wider than a Rayalaseema story.