The Indian state of Karnataka has declared 177 taluks drought-affected.
It estimates losses of Rs 46,324.50 crore.
It has sought Rs 7,142.64 crore from the Centre’s National Disaster Response Fund.
Chief Minister DK Shivakumar met a central assessment team on October 3.
Rainfall was 35 per cent below normal between June 1 and September 16.
Red gram was hit on 6.49 lakh hectares, maize on 5.31 lakh hectares and cotton on 4.13 lakh hectares.
Ground verification was continuing in 40 more taluks, according to LatestLY.
On September 23, Shivakumar wrote to the Prime Minister asking for Rs 1,852.65 crore, half of the Rs 3,705.30 crore memorandum, as interim assistance.
In that letter he warned that crop losses could exceed 40 lakh hectares, according to The South First.
He also asked the Centre to release the second instalment of its contribution to the State Disaster Response Fund in advance.
The interim funds would support input subsidies, drinking water, livestock protection and other relief measures.
The Union government’s central teams assess drought losses on the ground before the Centre decides on assistance from the NDRF.
A taluk is an administrative sub-division of a district, and Karnataka has more than 200 of them.
Kharif crops are those sown with the monsoon in June and July and harvested in the autumn.
The figures reported by ANI, LatestLY and others were presented as the state government’s estimates, not the central team’s findings.
The Karnataka government has estimated drought-related losses of Rs 46,324.50 crore across 177 affected taluks for the Kharif 2026 season.
It has sought Rs 7,142.64 crore from the Centre under the National Disaster Response Fund, or NDRF.
Chief Minister DK Shivakumar met the Centre’s Inter-Ministerial Central Team on Saturday, October 3, and presented the state’s memorandums.
The central team is led by Ajit Kumar Sahu, a Joint Secretary in the Union Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Ministry.
Drought (representative image), Tomas Castelazo, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0