LUCKNOW, July 18: Uttar Pradesh state is on the verge of a severe drought that would lead to a major crisis in the region, local leaders said on Thursday.

Chief Secretary D.S Bagga said that the state administration was very worried that the drought being experienced by western Uttar Pradesh would spread across the region.

“We have already been forced to declare a drought in 15 districts in Uttar Pradesh. If monsoon rains do not arrive soon the whole state will be plunged into a major crisis,” said Bagga.

“More than 50 percent of the crops in these drought-hit districts have burnt out because of the lack of water and rain.”

Bagga also said the state government was releasing 2.4 billion rupees to aid farmers.

The distribution of rainfall in India this year has been very uneven.

Flash floods triggered by monsoon rains in northeas-tern and western India have already killed hundreds of people and marooned thousands of others.

The worst-affected states have been Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

On the other hand, central and northern India have been starved of rain.

The annual monsoon rains first hit the southern Indian coast of Kerala in June and spread across some of the rest of the country over the next three months.

The rains have been particularly slow in reaching northern India, which is India’s “food bowl”.

The monsoon rains are India’s economic lifeline because over 70 percent of the country’s billion-plus population depends on agriculture for a living.

Economists and analysts said another week’s delay before the monsoon hits Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Delhi and Punjab would lead to a fall in the estimated gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the financial year to March 2003.

The Confederation of Indian Industry, the leading industrial lobbying body, said a drought could lead to a 0.5 percent drop in GDP growth.—AFP