BENGALURU: Chief minister D K Shivakumar has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging the Centre to immediately depute a team to assess Karnataka’s worsening monsoon situation. He said timely intervention by the Centre would strengthen the state’s efforts to mitigate the impact of the emerging drought. He also said a prolonged rainfall deficit could severely affect agriculture, drinking water availability, irrigation and hydropower generation.In his letter on Tuesday, Shivakumar said Karnataka has received only 203 mm of rainfall against the normal 292 mm as of July 11, recording a 30% deficit. He noted that 18 of the state’s 31 districts and 141 of its 240 taluks have reported deficit to large-deficit rainfall.The CM said southwest monsoon reached Karnataka on June 5 but took 17 days to cover the entire state because of a prolonged break.Shivakumar highlighted that Malnad region, the main catchment for Cauvery, Tunga and Bhadra rivers, recorded a 34% rainfall deficit, followed by the coastal region (30%), north-interior Karnataka (24%) and southinterior Karnataka (18%). He said deficient rainfall has already affected kharif so wing, with only 28.3 lakh hectares covered against the seasonal target of 84.1 during the first week of July. The letter also flagged concerns over reservoir levels. As of July 10, the combined storage in Karnataka’s 14 major reservoirs stood at 303 tmcft, just 34% of their gross storage capacity of 895.65 tmcft.
