In 2025, it was a problem of too much rain. Rain and flood fury in southeast and central Maharashtra ravaged thousands of hectares of crops, flattened homes, washed away livestock and devastated thousands of households. A year on, the same villages in the same region are a study in contrast.

Take Dharashiv in the state’s Marathwada region. Normal rainfall in June and July was followed by 27.9 per cent (of normal) rain in August and only 3.7 per cent till 20 September. Just when soya bean, a major crop in the district, was flowering and forming pods, there was practically no rain. Overall, this season, the district has received just 310.7 mm against a long-period average expected rainfall of 603.1 mm (a deficit of nearly 50 per cent) and there has been no rain in the district for 80 days.

The consequences are devastating: the groundwater level has dropped by over seven metres, and is below the five-year average. Revenue officials estimate crop losses of 80–85 per cent. Distraught farmers are cutting up their dried soya bean plants to feed cattle.

Dharashiv is not an isolated story.

India’s southwest monsoon is receding, and the expected national rainfall deficit is 15 per cent. That bit of data does not reveal the full extent of the problem, though.

The IMD’s (India Meteorological Department) district-wise data for 1 June to 30 September shows that 342 of 734 districts for which data is available received ‘deficient’ (-20 to -59 per cent) or ‘large deficient’ (-60 to -99 per cent) rainfall. Of these, 303 districts are listed as ‘deficient’ and 39 as ‘large deficient’. Only 305 districts are listed under ‘normal’ (-19 to 19 per cent) rainfall.

In other words, half of India has had a bad monsoon, and while the national deficit figure (of 15 per cent) may look........

© National Herald