Monsoon Withdrawal 2026: Half of India Dry |...

CURRENT AFFAIRS | 23 SEPTEMBER 2026

On 23 September 2026, Down To Earth reported that more than half of India is under dry or drought conditions even as the southwest monsoon begins to withdraw. The report, by Shagun, put the figure at 52.5 per cent of the country’s area under dry or drought conditions as of 16 September, and set it against the season’s rainfall record: between 1 June and 22 September 2026 India received 706.9 mm of rain against a normal of 832.4 mm — a deficit of 15 per cent, on India Meteorological Department (IMD) data.

The distribution of that shortfall is what makes the story serious rather than merely statistical. On the drought assessment cited in the report, 79 per cent of western India and 67 per cent of southern India were under dry or drought conditions, with the northeast at 62 per cent, the northwest at 47 per cent, the east at 42 per cent, the north at 41 per cent and central India at 40 per cent. The assessments draw on the India Drought Monitor maintained at IIT Gandhinagar, with commentary from the Centre for Climate Studies at IIT Bombay. One of the scientists quoted, Karthikeyan Lanka of IIT Bombay, told the magazine that “this drought looks worse than the 2015-16 drought”.

Sub-regional deficits reported for 1 June to 20 September are sharper still: Rayalaseema 43 per cent below normal, coastal Andhra Pradesh 37 per cent, Marathwada 36 per cent, northern and southern interior Karnataka 32 per cent each, and Kerala 28 per cent. The agricultural consequence is already visible in the sowing data: as of 11 September, total kharif area stood at 1,096.49 lakh hectares, a fall of 16.05 lakh hectares year on year, with rice down about 17 lakh hectares at 426.81 lakh hectares. In the background, the World Meteorological Organization has reported that El Niño is now “firmly established” in the tropical Pacific and is expected to persist through February 2027.

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Southwest monsoon withdrawal: how the season works, and why the exit date matters

The southwest monsoon is the four-month rainy season that delivers the bulk of India’s annual rainfall. It normally sets in over Kerala around 1 June, advances north-westwards across the subcontinent through June and July, and then retreats in the reverse direction, beginning from north-west India in the second half of September and completing its withdrawal from the southern peninsula by around mid-October. The official monsoon season for accounting purposes runs 1 June to 30 September. Withdrawal is therefore not merely a calendar event: once the monsoon pulls back, whatever deficit exists at that moment becomes the season’s final number, and the soil-moisture stress it leaves behind is carried forward into the rabi sowing season.

The physical driver is the seasonal reversal of winds caused by the differential heating of land and sea. The Indian landmass heats faster than the ocean in summer, creating a low-pressure trough that draws moisture-laden winds in from the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. In winter the gradient reverses, producing the north-east monsoon, which is the main rainy season for Tamil Nadu and adjoining areas — a standing favourite for CLAT-style geography questions because it is the exception to the general Indian pattern.

Background & Framework

LPA and rainfall categories. The IMD measures a season against the Long Period Average (LPA) — the average rainfall over a long reference period, used as the benchmark so that any given year can be expressed as a percentage of “normal”. For the country as a whole across the season, IMD classifies rainfall as Normal at 96–104 per cent of LPA, Below Normal at 90–96 per cent, Deficient below 90 per cent, Above Normal at 104–110 per cent and Excess above 110 per cent. At the sub-divisional and district level, IMD uses departure bands to mark areas as deficient or large deficient. A single national percentage can therefore conceal a badly skewed distribution — which is precisely the situation in 2026.

ENSO and the IOD. The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) describes the coupled ocean-atmosphere cycle in the tropical Pacific. El Niño — the warm phase — is historically associated with weaker Indian monsoon rainfall, while La Niña, the cool phase, tends to be favourable. The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) measures the sea-surface temperature difference between the western and eastern tropical Indian Ocean; a positive IOD generally aids the monsoon and can partially offset an El Niño. These are statistical tendencies, not laws, and the IMD’s own forecasts carry stated model error.

Declaring a drought. Declaring drought in India is a State government function. The Union government’s Manual for Drought Management (Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare) sets out the methodology — mandatory indicators such as rainfall deviation and dry spells, followed by impact indicators covering soil moisture, vegetation indices, reservoir storage and sowing area, and field verification — and provides for categorisation as moderate or severe. Relief is then channelled through the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF), with additional assistance from the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) for a severe drought.

The legal architecture: disaster management and the right to water

Drought is a notified disaster for relief purposes and sits inside the framework of the Disaster Management Act, 2005. That Act creates a three-tier structure: the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), chaired ex officio by the Prime Minister; State Disaster Management Authorities, chaired by the respective Chief Ministers; and District Disaster Management Authorities. The Act also establishes the National Institute of Disaster Management and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) — note carefully that the NDRF as a force and the NDRF as a fund share an acronym, a classic examiner’s trap.

The rights dimension runs through Article 21. Indian courts have read the right to life as including a right to a wholesome environment and access to clean drinking water, so a State’s failure to supply water in a drought-hit district can in principle be framed as an Article 21 claim rather than merely a policy grievance. Article 47, a Directive Principle, reinforces this by making public health and standard of living a primary State duty. Water is Entry 17 of the State List, subject to Entry 56 of the Union List, which allows Parliament to regulate inter-State rivers and river valleys in the public interest — the constitutional hinge on which inter-State water disputes turn under Article 262.

The CLAT Angle

A monsoon-and-drought story is one of the most reliable sources of data-and-inference questions. Expect a passage carrying the national deficit figure (15 per cent) alongside the regional splits, then a question asking which inference is supported. The disciplined answer is that a national figure of 706.9 mm against a normal of 832.4 mm tells you nothing about any particular State — western India at 79 per cent affected and central India at 40 per cent sit inside the same national average. Watch for the classic distractor that treats “below normal nationally” as equivalent to “drought everywhere”.

In Legal Reasoning, the likely construction is a principle on federal competence: given that drought declaration and relief are primarily State functions, can the Union direct a State to declare drought? Or a principle on Article 21 and access to water, asking whether an individual can compel a supply. Keep the two layers separate: who has the power (State, under the Drought Manual methodology) is a different question from what a citizen can enforce (an Article 21 claim, not a Directive Principle). A third likely angle is the Disaster Management Act structure — who chairs the NDMA, and whether the NDRF is a fund or a force.

Key Facts

Down To Earth, 23 September 2026: more than half of India is under dry or drought conditions as the southwest monsoon begins to withdraw.
52.5 per cent of India’s area was under dry or drought conditions as of 16 September 2026.
Rainfall 1 June–22 September 2026: 706.9 mm against a normal of 832.4 mm, a 15 per cent deficit (IMD data).
Regional share under dry or drought conditions: west 79%, south 67%, northeast 62%, northwest 47%, east 42%, north 41%, central 40%.
Sub-divisional deficits (1 June–20 September): Rayalaseema 43%, coastal Andhra Pradesh 37%, Marathwada 36%, interior Karnataka 32%, Kerala 28%.
Kharif area as of 11 September: 1,096.49 lakh hectares, down 16.05 lakh hectares year on year; rice at 426.81 lakh hectares.
Drought assessments draw on the India Drought Monitor at IIT Gandhinagar; IIT Bombay’s Centre for Climate Studies compared the spell unfavourably with the 2015-16 drought.
The World Meteorological Organization reports El Niño as “firmly established” and expected to persist through February 2027.
The southwest monsoon normally sets in over Kerala around 1 June; the official season runs 1 June to 30 September.
IMD seasonal categories: Normal 96–104% of LPA, Below Normal 90–96%, Deficient below 90%, Above Normal 104–110%, Excess above 110%.
Drought is declared by State governments using the Union Manual for Drought Management; relief flows through the SDRF, with NDRF assistance for severe drought.
The Disaster Management Act, 2005 creates the NDMA (chaired by the Prime Minister), SDMAs (chaired by Chief Ministers) and DDMAs.

Memory Hook / Mnemonic

“707 against 832 — half the map is dry.” Fix the two rainfall numbers as a pair (706.9 mm actual, 832.4 mm normal, 15 per cent short) and the headline share (52.5 per cent of the area) follows.

For the regional order, remember “West is worst, South is second” — west 79 per cent, south 67 per cent, everything else in the forties and low sixties. For ENSO, use “El Niño = No rain; La Niña = Lots of rain”. And for the drought machinery: “States declare, the Manual measures, the SDRF pays”.