Farmers from Gujarat who went to the state Secretariat in Gandhinagar to demand a drought declaration were stopped at the gate on Wednesday 14 October 2026, Gujarat Samachar reported, as neighbouring Maharashtra announced direct aid of Rs 5,000 for each drought-hit farmer ahead of Diwali. The report said that Gujarat has so far issued no drought relief package despite severe distress in its northern and western coastal districts.
The farmers, led by Bharatsinh Jhala, asked for “an official drought declaration, Rs 25,000 per hectare in crop loss assistance, and agriculture loan waivers”. Security personnel prevented them from entering the Secretariat, with officials telling them they were “blacklisted” from the premises, according to the report. The delegation submitted its petition at the gate. The state government’s response to the demand was not given in the report.
The rainfall figures cited are stark. Devbhumi Dwarka has a deficit of 83.5 percent, and Porbandar, Jamnagar and Kutch have deficits of 57 to 69 percent. The statewide average stands at 89.19 percent of the 30-year normal. Taken together, these suggest that some districts have been far drier than the state average, which hides large local differences, and that the average itself is below normal.
Reservoirs are low. Of 206 medium and small dams, 116 hold less than 50 percent of their capacity, the report said. The Sipu dam in Banaskantha is at 4.16 percent and the Bhadar dam in Rajkot at 19.90 percent. Low storage matters for drinking water as well as for winter-crop irrigation, and it increases the pressure on the government to say how it will manage water allocation through the dry season.
Maharashtra’s comparison is central to the farmers’ argument. Its cabinet announced direct cash transfers of Rs 5,000 for farmers across 305 drought-hit talukas, finalised 3.5 lakh farmers for its loan waiver scheme, and introduced educational fee waivers and a freeze on forced debt recovery by banks, according to Gujarat Samachar and Social News XYZ. Gujarat has relief precedents of its own: in October 2025 it announced a Rs 947 crore package for farmers hit by heavy rains, including Rs 12,000 per hectare for non-irrigated crops and Rs 22,000 for irrigated crops, DeshGujarat reported at the time.
A little arithmetic shows how widespread the storage problem is: 116 of 206 dams is about 56 percent of the medium and small dams below half capacity. Farmers’ leaders are asking for Rs 25,000 per hectare, which is more than the Rs 22,000 per hectare paid for irrigated crops in the October 2025 rain-damage package, and for loan waivers that the state has not announced. The state government had not responded in the report reviewed.
Whether Gujarat follows with a package will depend on a formal drought assessment and cabinet decision, neither of which had been announced in the reports reviewed. Farmers’ leaders want the declaration first, since it unlocks central and state norms for relief. IndiaX24 will report on the state government’s response, on any relief package announced before Diwali and on further protests.
Featured image: Women at work in a field in Gujarat (file photo, 2013). Photo by Bernard Gagnon, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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