Critically evaluate the process of declaring drought and its federal dimensions.

Drought is a notified disaster eligible for State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) assistance [1], yet its declaration is a State act while its financing is shared — making the process as much a federal negotiation as a scientific exercise. Maharashtra's announcement that it will declare "100% drought" after a prolonged dry spell and extensive crop loss [2] illustrates the gap between political declaration and fiscal entitlement.

The declaration process

• The Manual for Drought Management, 2016 grades drought as normal, moderate or severe using five indicator categories — rainfall (mandatory), agriculture, soil moisture, hydrology and remote sensing [3].
• A "severe" grade requires at least three impact indicators in the severe class; only then may a State seek National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) assistance via a memorandum and central team visit [3].
• Statutorily, NDRF rests on Section 46 and SDRF on Section 48(1)(a) of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 [4].

Merits

• Replaces pre-2016 open-ended claims with measurable, satellite-verified indicators, restraining politically motivated declarations — justified because NDRF is wholly central money, while SDRF is shared 75:25 (90:10 for NE and Himalayan States) [1].
• Implements Swaraj Abhiyan v. Union of India (2016), where the Court found States "hesitant to acknowledge" drought and ordered a standardised multi-indicator manual with fixed determinants and timelines [5].

Critical federal concerns

• Discretion has migrated, not disappeared: earlier States could deny drought; now the Centre can deny the "severe" grade, leaving genuinely distressed districts at "moderate" — entitling only revenue and power-bill deferment.
• Rainfall-centric triggers miss dry spells: a crop can fail in a three-week gap at flowering even when seasonal rainfall nears normal.
• Divergent yardsticks: Maharashtra's paisewari yield test and the Manual routinely yield opposite results, shifting relief costs to State budgets.
• Delay defeats relief, since SDRF assistance runs only for a short, capped window [1].

The process is scientifically sounder than the discretion it replaced, but its thresholds sit above lived distress. Recognising prolonged dry spells as an independent trigger, relaxing the three-indicator rule, and fixing binding timelines for both State memoranda and central decisions would align it with the Court's mandate and with cooperative federalism in disaster response.