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R. Parthasarathy

Any plans in sight?... Monsoons will always be unpredictable and it is for us to intelligently manage available water resources to overcome drought.

This year's drought has surprised many by its severity. Worst in a quarter century, the drought is widespread, affecting 12 States with rainfall shortage ranging from 30 per cent to near total failure of monsoon. During the past decade, India has been witnessing the alarming depletion of ground water resources due to rapid industrialisation and urbanisation, which resulted in excessive drawal outstripping recharge. Poor rainfall will affect groundwater replenishment, reducing irrigation capacity and urban water supply.

Rapid urbanisation also takes away rich farm lands. In effect, continuously increased foodgrains target has to be met not only from lower cultivated area but also under conditions of severe water shortage. Among the worst affected are Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa and Karnataka. Parts of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh also received low rainfall. According to an official statement, 12 States have been affected by the drought. In UP alone, more than 30 districts have been declared drought-hit and in Karnataka, 121 out of the 135 taluks have declared badly affected. The situation is the same in Madhya Pradesh. Even if the monsoon sets in with delay, major crop losses cannot be avoided. Besides grain, vegetables and crops such as soyabean have been affected with 25-30 per cent less production.

Launching of relief measures in the form of food for work programme and postponing recovery of loans and waiver of interest may only ameliorate the suffering of farmers, but the core problem of salvaging the crop and providing fodder for the cattle remains. In the mandis of the northern States, a 30 per cent fall in arrival of foodgrains has been reported so far. Thanks to the comfortable buffer stock, it has been possible to rush wheat and rice to the affected areas. But in a year of such extensive monsoon failure, moving the grain to many far-flung areas poses special problems of logistics.

While India has pioneered many innovative methods of modern cultivation, making the ship-to-mouth existence of the 1960s a distant nightmare, we are still to develop techniques of successful water harvesting and management, which are important to tide over difficulties in severe drought years. This requires the scientific community to not only intensify its research in this area but also for agriculture administrators to bring about large-scale community involvement with a new approach to utilisation of water as a scarce resource.

However, even an efficient water management system is no real substitute to timely rainfall. Soil micro temperature and environment moisture conditions have a lot to do with crop maturity and disease resistance. The agriculture extension service did a good job of transforming the farmer's outlook and approach to modern farming techniques. The whole nation has to realise that what we considered as the bountiful gift of nature — water — till yesterday, is no longer so.

In large part, we are to blame for this. Lifestyle changes with conservation as focus must be brought about. Conflicts on sharing water are increasing. Monsoons will always be unpredictable and it is for us to intelligently manage available water resources to overcome the calamity of drought.

While significant advances have been made in the production of pulses and oil seeds through Technology Missions, the success has not been the same in foodgrain production in dry land areas. Research in developing crop varieties that may have relatively long survival capability in times of monsoon failure needs to be intensified. This is not easy, for at the early growth stages, plants require plenty of water. Are there viable options to farmers to tide over monsoon failure? Local panchayats with the help of the scientific community must address this issue. The farmers are among the most enterprising cultivators who have been toiling against innumerable problems of infrastructure deficiencies, risks out of proportion to their economic status, financing problems and bureaucratic delays and corruption.

In a normal year, India receives 1 per cent of total global rainfall with 2 per cent of geographical area. That is not a small quantity of precipitation. However, geographically, it is unevenly distributed. Nearly two thirds of the precipitation falls on the narrow coastal belt of the Western Ghats, the north-eastern territories of Assam and the hilly States. Much of the rain in the north-eastern region and the plains of the north not only goes waste due to poor water harnessing and impounding facilities, but carries with it the rich alluvial top soil. Harnessing the mighty Brahmaputra and utilising its water must receive priority attention. The north-western part and the southern interior peninsular, on the other hand, receive relatively very little rain, that too in a single season. We also have very low level of forest coverage at 0.5 per cent of world forest cover and poor grazing land for cattle, again at 0.5 per cent of global grazing ground. These are important statistics, as they indicate the capacity to attract timely precipitation and utilisation, including fodder for animal feed. India has not developed adequate scientific water conservation practices both in the urban and rural regions.

The National Watershed Development Project for Rainfed Areas has been in existence for more than a decade, covering 28 States and Union Territories. The main focus is conservation, development and sustainable management of natural resources with community involvement and reduction of disparity between irrigated and rainfed areas. Progress, however, has been uneven depending on the extent of community involvement, which is vital for water conservation. So, there is really no effective answer to counter the effects of extensive failure of monsoon. Partly, the remedy lies in better rain harvesting in years of normal rainfall, storage and conservation. Water shortage in India is also artificially created. Inter-State disputes on sharing of river water have never been easy to tackle. Part of the solution to India's water shortage lies in harnessing excessive flows in surplus regions to cater to the needs of the deficient ones. Networking major rivers through canals and creating strategically located reservoirs may be an answer. Though expensive and technologically-daunting, it has to be done on a war footing.

A national mission on water resources management needs to be mounted. Harnessing water through canal network and reservoirs and dams might involve crores of rupees and might require international cooperation to overcome technical difficulties. Perhaps, the World Bank and the ADB could be approached for funding. What is needed is an extensive national or regional water grids which can also serve navigational purpose. For example, the eastern grid can harness the water from the Brahmaputra and the Ganga; the central plains from the Ganga, the Yamuna and its tributaries; the western region from the Narmada and the southern region from the Godavari, the Krishna and the Cauvery. Allocation of sufficient funds for tapping water resources of small underground water systems, which can be location-specific, must be done after thorough feasibility studies.

Foodgrain production accrues from about 145 million hectares, of which less than 40 per cent is irrigated, accounting for nearly 60 per cent of production and over 60 per cent unirrigated, accounting for 40 per cent of the production. Besides, most areas in rainfed tracts are under small grains farming, whereas wheat and rice come mostly from irrigated tracts. In tropical regions, agriculture is the largest user of water, accounting for three quarters of the total consumption. Evapo-transpiration losses are also high in tropical regions, resulting in more water being used than what is needed by the crops per se. Further, nearly half the water drawn for irrigation does not reach the field. Could our agriculture scientific community look into water-use aspects of paddy cultivation just as it did about removing varietal limitation to productivity and production and come up with suggestions? Is there a scope for recycling irrigation water or planning supply of water to paddy crop on fixed time schedules instead of the standing water? Paddy and sugarcane require plenty of water and that makes it difficult in a year of total monsoon failure.

(The author is a New-Delhi-based management and financial consultant.)

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