Drought is a slow onset disaster, thus giving us time to cope with it in the following ways
• Through preparedness and response, the drought-affected societies certainly can reduce its intensity.
• People have to take effective steps which must be sustained for a long period of time.
• Such involvement should be from a cross-section of people such as community, Panchayat representatives, volunteers, government functionaries, teachers and students.
People must have long-term drought mitigation strategies such as
• Construction of community based rain water harvesting structures.
• Promoting watershed programmes.
• Increasing forest cover through plantations.
• Adopting drought resistant variety of paddy and other crops.
• Using alternative crops in drought conditions.
• Capacity building of communities in Drought Management and introducing livelihood options besides agriculture and animal husbandry which are water intensive.
• Encouraging crop and seed insurance schemes.
• Students can also play a key role in many ways like conserve water through preventing wastage and misuse of water, recycling of water, etc.