Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy has described the El Niño-driven rainfall failure as a natural disaster and asked farmers to postpone rabi paddy. Reservoirs in the Krishna basin are 72% below normal, power demand has passed 20,000 MW, and Hyderabad’s water-tanker bookings have more than tripled. Nationally, the southwest monsoon has withdrawn with a 12.6% deficit, and forecasters warn that El Niño may become the strongest since records began in 1950.
On Thursday, 15 October, two announcements arrived within hours of each other. In New Delhi, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) declared that the southwest monsoon had withdrawn from the entire country. In Hyderabad, after a meeting with his ministers at the Secretariat, Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy called the impact of El Niño a “natural disaster” and announced a “multi-pronged action plan”, PTI reported.
Together, the two statements mark a turning point. For weeks, Telangana’s drought has been discussed as a run of bad news: low reservoirs, power cuts and water rationing. It is now an officially acknowledged emergency, with consequences for the winter crop, the power grid and the water supply of Hyderabad.
The numbers behind the declaration
According to Siasat’s report of the Chief Minister’s briefing, Telangana has a rainfall deficit of 23%. Storage in Krishna basin reservoirs is 72% below normal and in the Godavari basin about 40% below normal. Some reports put the Godavari figure at 42%. About 10 lakh acres of standing crops are at high risk.
The Chief Minister asked farmers to postpone paddy cultivation in the coming rabi season. Paddy is one of the thirstiest crops in Telangana’s farm economy, and a rabi paddy crop depends on reservoir releases that the state is unlikely to be able to make. He said an all-party meeting would be held after Dasara to seek suggestions, and that he would lead an all-party delegation to Union Home Minister Amit Shah and other Union ministers in November. He compared the situation to the COVID-19 pandemic: “During COVID, we did whatever Prime Minister Modi asked us to do. We did not look at policies or flags that day.”
A grid under strain
Power is the second front. Siasat reports that demand has reached 20,000 MW, against the roughly 15,000 MW expected for October and 5,000 MW more than last year. About 30 lakh agricultural pump sets are running as farmers try to save crops with groundwater. The state is buying electricity at market rates to protect standing crops until the monsoon harvest, which is about 20 days away.
Supply is fragile. On 15 October, The Hans India and Telangana Today reported that TG GENCO had suspended the chief engineer of Stage I of the Yadadri Thermal Power Station for supervisory lapses after an 800 MW unit went offline. The Hans India also reported a coal conveyor running at half capacity and a failed ash-water recovery system sending ash-laden water into the Krishna. NSH has not been able to verify the ash-water claim independently.
IT Minister D. Sridhar Babu attributed Yadadri’s coal shortfall to a supply agreement signed under the previous BRS government. The opposition has made counter-allegations. These are political claims, and NSH reports them only as such.
The city feels it first
Hyderabad’s water utility, HMWSSB, offers the clearest measure of urban stress. Telangana Today reports 62,565 tanker bookings so far in October, against 18,806 in October last year, an increase of 233%. Daily bookings run at 5,000–8,000, against 800–1,500 normally. More than 20,000 borewells have dried up, particularly in high-rise IT corridors. Bookings have risen by 2,132% in Boduppal, 1,284% in LB Nagar and 769% in Manikonda.
A senior official said tanker demand normally peaks between March and late July, and that the city has jumped straight from the monsoon into peak-summer conditions about eight months early. Officials fear the situation “will become entirely unmanageable from November onwards” as Singur and Manjeera reservoir levels fall. In the countryside, paddy farmers in Jogulamba Gadwal are paying ₹500 for a 2,000-litre tanker trip to save their crops, although the Jurala project is only 10 km away.
The national and global picture
IMD’s figures put Telangana’s crisis in context. Rainfall over the June–September season totalled 759.4 mm against a normal of 868.6 mm, a shortfall of 12.6%. The northeast monsoon began on 15 October over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala, south interior Karnataka, coastal Andhra Pradesh and Rayalaseema, with a wet spell forecast until 21 October. Telangana receives only a modest share of its annual rain from the northeast monsoon, so this will bring limited relief to its reservoirs.
The cause is in the Pacific. El Niño conditions emerged in June and have strengthened since. The World Meteorological Organization expects the event to peak in December, possibly as the strongest since observations began in 1950, and to persist through February 2027. NASA reported on 15 October that eastern Pacific waters are about 1.7°C above normal, citing a NOAA estimate of an 83% chance that the strongest El Niño on record is developing. El Niño years are often associated with weaker Indian monsoons, although the link is not deterministic.
What a “disaster” label can and cannot do
Calling the situation a natural disaster is politically significant, but it is not yet a formal legal notification. Under India’s disaster-management framework, a state’s drought declaration and the Centre’s assessment determine access to the State and National Disaster Response Funds. Whether Telangana issues formal drought notifications for specific mandals, as Andhra Pradesh did earlier this month for 388 mandals, will determine what relief follows.
The deeper lesson concerns planning. Telangana’s irrigation is electricity-intensive, its thermal plants need water and suitable coal, and its capital depends on distant reservoirs. A strong El Niño stresses all three at once. Durable responses, such as crop diversification away from rabi paddy, solar pumping, demand management and urban water recycling, take years. The action plan announced this week will be judged by whether it begins that shift or only manages the next eight months.
Uncertainties
Figures differ between outlets on the Godavari shortfall (40% or 42%) and the crop area at risk. The date of the all-party meeting changed during the day. No formal drought notification had been issued at the time of writing.
