Revisiting Drought-Prone Districts in India -B Venkateswarlu, BMK Raju, KV Rao, and CA Rama Rao

The Drought-Prone Areas Programme and the Desert Development Programme launched by the Government of India during the 1970s used rainfall and irrigation as the two criteria to ameliorate the impact of drought in the targeted districts. This article revisits the eligibility criteria in light of the recent climatic classification and irrigation statistics.

B Venkateswarlu (vbandi_1953@yahoo.com), B M K Raju, K V Rao and C A Rama Rao are with the Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture, Hyderabad.