DROUGHT IN MAHARASHTRA 49 lost this year may be put at about Rs 100 crores. The loss of crop is almost total in the drought-affected areas. For the State as a whole, the losses in the production of foodgrains due to crop failure are officially put at 55 per cent of the production of kharif]ow2iT and65percentofrfl6ijowar,75percentofbajra, 50 per cent of rice, 50 per cent of tur and other pulses. Besides, over 70 per cent of the groundnut crop and about 40 per cent of the cotton crop are reported to have failed. The estimated loss to the economy due to the failure of crop is of the order of Rs 333 crores. Drought Prone The extensive tract particularly in Western Maharashtra is chronically susceptible to drought. The Imperial Gazetteer describes a prolonged paralysing famine between 1397 and 1408 AD—popularly known as Durgadevi famine. Incidence of drought is reported in the Gazetteer of Bombay State in 17 different years during the nineteenth century and in another nine years between 1901 and 1947. In the post-independence period drought conditions occurred in 1952-53, 1965-66, 1970-71 and 1972-73. The State Government had set up a Committee in 1958 to identify the scarcity areas in the State and to suggest ameliorative measures. In identifying the scarcity areas the Committee considered rainfall and its variability, annewari and land revenue suspensions and the number of occasions on which the area had been declared as scarcity-affected during the last 30 years. On the basis of these criteria, 53 talukas from nine districts, namely, Sholapur, Ahmednagar, Nasik, Poona, Osmanabad, Bhir, Aurangabad, Satara and Sangli were identified as scarcity-prone talukas. Suspecting the validity of the annewari classification, the State later on considered only the rainfall criteria, declaring 112 talukas out of the total 231 talukas in the State as scarcity-prone talukas, 50 of which being wholly and 62 being partly susceptible to drought. In 1970, the Irrigation Commission1 identified 45 talukas from the above mentioned nine districts as drought-prone. The leeward belt, about 200 kilometres in width, adjoining the Western Ghats, stretching almost from the northern to the southern border of the State has been recognised for decades as drought-prone because of the low and uncertain rainfall conditions. Official Definition of Scarcity Maharashtra State is chronically deficient in the production of foodgrains. If the basic needs (12 kg per month per capita) of the total population, together with seed requirements and so forth are to be met, the shortfall in normal years was of the order of 10 to 12 per cent during the 1950s. In 1965-66 there was a shortfall of about 45 per cent and in 1970-71 it was 40 per cent in relation to the total requirements. In these years, the minimum needs, particularly in the urban areas, were met through the fair price shops which were stocked with supplies imp-