Telangana has taken proactive measures to fight El Nino, says Deputy CM

HYDERABAD

Deputy Chief Minister M. Bhatti Vikramarka on Friday said the El Nino phenomenon has affected Telangana in the form of deficient rainfall, reduction in inflows to reservoirs, pressure on agriculture and increase in electricity demand.

Anticipating the seriousness of the situation well in advance, the government has started taking preventive measures since April in coordination with various departments, he explained in the assembly during a brief discussion on the impact of El Nino and remedial measures. He said the rainfall deficit was 12% in June, 1% in July and a significant 38% in August.

Against the normal rainfall of 640 mm till September 18, Telangana recorded only 543 mm, he noted. He pointed out that average rainfall figures alone did not fully reflect the severity of the situation as rainfall at the right time and at appropriate intervals was crucial for crops. One or two days of heavy rain cannot completely offset the impact of prolonged dry conditions that existed earlier, he explained.

About its impact on agriculture, he said the area under Kharif cultivation this year was 123.74 lakh acres as against 139.29 lakh acres last year. Rice cultivation has fallen by about 18%, he said.

Citing 15-minute interval data from TG-Transco, he said the combined load of the main lift irrigation schemes was repeatedly recorded between 1,100MW and 1,500MW during the first half of August and reached almost 1,600MW in some cases, while the load was generally between 250MW and 450MW during the period. On September 9, the state recorded the highest peak load of 19,453 MW.

The decrease in precipitation also resulted in lower inflows into the reservoirs, which caused a significant drop in hydropower production. Hydel generation has fallen to 422 MW this year from 1,940 MW in the same period last year, the deputy minister said. Bids to buy electricity on the energy exchange’s daily market rose 61.7%, while the average price of energy rose 22%, he noted.

Regarding wage employment, he said From April to June, an average of 12 million persons per day participated in job security work, and from July, about 2 million persons per day sought employment during the period of lean agriculture. During 2026-27, 7.3 million person-days of employment have been generated so far, providing employment to 31.5 million persons belonging to 21 million families and wages of ₹2,100.53 million have been paid.

Ministers D. Seethakka, Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy, Ponnam Prabhakar, D. Sridhar Babu, members of Ch. Vijayaramana Rao, J. Anirudh Reddy, Ch. Vamshi Krishna, B. Murali Naik, Adi Srinivas, B. Ilaiah and T. Rammohan Reddy (all Congress), A. Maheshwar Reddy, Payal Shankar, P. Harish Babu and P. Rakesh Reddy (all BJP), Kausar Mohiuddin (AIMIM) and K. Sambasiva Rao (CPI) participated in the discussion.

Published – 18 Sep 2026 23:26 IST