According to agriculture department officials, the normal extent of cultivation in undivided Anantapur is 16.15 lakh acres, but cultivation was done in 8.82 lakh acres only during Kharif. As against the normal extent of 3.04 lakh acres, of which 1.93 lakh is cultivated under Bengal gram, and at present, the crop is cultivated in only 16,600 acres. In Sri Satya Sai district, groundnut is cultivated in 69,000 acres during Rabi, but only 43,000 acres of land has been cultivated so far.
