India stares at water scarcity (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Environment
Prelims level: post-monsoon rainfall
Mains level: Environmental impact assessment

Context

•  The rains have failed us. Nothing new, one might say.
•  It except that the rains’ let down this time comes on top of an already low-rain and, in many places, no-rain ground situation.
•  The next nearest rains are six months away.
•  The cruelly blue, cloudless skies over much of India, north, central, eastern and peninsular India, say it all.
•  There is no guarantee that June will see the onset of a normal monsoon.

What the sky says

•  The Prime Minister and Chief Ministers are not unaware of the situation.
•  The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has given them enough data.
•  But when droughts and elections intersect, it is extremely uncomfortable to leaders.
•  It is inconvenient to dwell on the skies’ tidings.
•  Which government would like to tell farmers that suffering lies at their threshold?
•  Who would like to tell them that water will be scarcer than before, that aquifers will plummet, crops wither, livestock go thirsty?
•  The IMD report on scant rains has received scant attention so far, with exceptions being provided by P. Sainath’s relentless warnings and observations of experts of the calibre and veracity of Ramchandra Sable.

Rain deficit facts

•  The actual deficit last monsoon was modest barely 10%.
•  But the post-monsoon rainfall (October to December, 2018) or PMR as it is called by meteorologists has registered a 44% deficit.
•  This national average deficit conceals shortages in some regions where it is much higher.
•  In Marathwada, according to the IMD, the deficit is 84%, in Vidarbha, 88%.

Time and money are short

•  The voter, especially the rural voter, has no illusions. A government either helps it overcome its life-and-death problems or does not.
•  The ‘Delhi Government’ will be tested in 2019 for its credibility on many issues, among which certainly l’affaire Rafale is now top-of-the-list, followed by the Reserve Bank of India and the Central Bureau of Investigation mess-ups.
•  But the elections in 2019 will test its credibility by what it does and says it will do for water-starved, food-short, livelihood-broken, rural India’s agrarian distress.
•  And in States where the NDA is not in power and now the States in which it is not exceeds the number of States in which it is the rural voter will vote against whoever is in office unless the ‘government party’ makes drought relief, water-use, food security and massive earth-related programmes its absolute priority.
•  In other words, unless it makes agrarian distress, now aggravated by the drought, its priority.
•  The failure of rains this time is so serious that ‘drought’ now means not just a farm crisis but a national crisis that will affect towns and cities no less than villages.
•  ‘Agrarian crisis’ appears to urban India as something ‘out there’.
•  It is only a matter of time when the ‘taken-for-granted’ piped water supply will falter and when water cans will cost even more than they do, today.

Way forward

•  Prime Minister will do well to appoint a commission like the Farmers’ Commission, which Dr. M.S. Swaminathan headed, to advise him or her on how water scarce India, all of India, needs to face drought.
•  It gives that Commission just one month to complete its study, make its recommendations not just to government but to all Indians, to us, who have become so used to water-access imbalance, water-use lopsidedness, water prodigality in the midst of water poverty that we just do not care.
•  And this time, not advisories or appeals but penalties will be needed.
•  Addressing the deepening drought, agrarian distress and water-management are critical not just for our governments to survive but for us to survive our governments.

Online Coaching for UPSC PRE Exam

General Studies Pre. Cum Mains Study Materials

Prelims Questions:

Q.1) Consider the following statements about Advantage Healthcare India (AHCI 2016)
1. It is an International Summit on Medical Value Travel with aim of ‘Promoting Healthcare Services Exports from India’
2. It is an initiative by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

Select the correct statement(s)
a) Only 1
b) Only 2
c) Both 1 and 2
d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer: A

Mains Questions:
Q.1) Tackling drought must be the immediate priority for administrators across the country. Critically examine this statement.