Year after year, politics on drought

Year after year, politics on drought

Prakash Bal JoshiUpdated: Friday, May 31, 2019, 11:13 PM IST
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You do not need an expert to tell you that monsoon this season has been irregular and inadequate, but you need a politician to tell you how badly it is going to impact life in cities as well as rural areas in Maharashtra. Year after year, the state legislature has discussed drought like conditions and debated what kind of permanent steps should be initiated to end this dependence on vagaries of monsoon. The media has been reporting about large scale migration from rural to semi-urban and metropolitan cities in the state due to drought conditions. From time to time, the government has been announcing packages for farmers to face drought conditions but there is no perceptible difference. Farmers in the state have lost confidence in the system and are ending their lives by committing suicides.

This year is no exception. As per rough estimates, over three crore people in the state are drought affected.  The water storage in the dams in Maharashtra is only 44 per cent. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) authorities have already warned Mumbaikars of water cuts if the monsoon keeps playing hide and seek and dams providing drinking water from miles away remain below normal level. The monsoon session of the state legislature witnessed many walk outs and slogan shouting over unabated suicides by famers in the state and the government promising immediate relief to drought hit farmers in the state.

Not satisfied with the apathy and slow progress, veteran politician Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar toured parts of Marathwada and took out a morcha to the divisional authorities to seek immediate attention of the state government to drought like conditions prevailing in the state. This is remarkable by any standard at his age but it invited accolades as well as criticism. He was applauded for taking tours of difficult rural terrain despite his age and health issues and also received criticism for doing nothing while in power for so long in the state as well as in Delhi. As an agriculture minister, he was in charge of farmers’ issues and had played a major role in deciding quantum and nature of relief packages for the farmers.

After touring the affected areas, he has declared that he would soon be meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for restructuring farmers’ loans in the state. He took a dig at Modi by saying that he would like to take up the issue with Modi in Delhi provided he is in the country. Pawar, in a tongue-in-cheek remark, hit out at the union government that by merely changing name of the agriculture ministry, the government is not going to solve the issues faced by farmers in the country. Pawar criticised Modi almost six months after Modi showered praise on Pawar during his Baramati visit. Due to failure of monsoon session of the Parliament, Pawar has been talking about reviving the third front of regional parties which do not have anything to do with the Congress as well as the BJP.

The state BJP has questioned the timing of his three-day tour of drought prone areas in Marathwada saying that Pawar could do nothing during his long tenure in UPA government at Delhi and leading the state as a chief minister for such a long period. Pawar took oath as a chief minister for four times during last four decades. Without referring to BJP’s criticism, he hoped that nobody will play petty politics over the issue of drought conditions prevailing in the state that require immediate steps to provide urgent support to farmers.

He points out that more than 50,000 affected people from drought-prone areas in the Marathwada region have migrated to Pimpri-Chinchwad near Pune during last one month. Many more have gone to other urban areas in the state. He has squarely blamed the state government for not providing drinking water to people and cattle in drought affected areas in Marathwada though many schemes remain merely on paper.

Pawar’s criticism is obviously directed towards Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to draw more political mileage. Fadnavis has hit out at Pawar for shedding crocodile tears for deteriorating plight of farmers in the state but doing nothing while remaining in power.

The chief minister is obviously more concerned about the threat given by Pawar about launching Jail Bharo Andolan after September 15 to highlight conditions of farmers in the state. He has blamed the NCP for bad conditions of the farmers in the region due to mismanagement of the Osmanabad district co-operative bank, district milk federation, sugar co-operative mill and spinning mill. Fadnavis also wants to know who actually diverted Marathwada’s share of water in the Krishna valley. He obviously blames the NCP leaders.

Despite spending thousands of crores for providing irrigation facilities, the state government has not been in a position to create adequate irrigation facilities in the state. The state also needs more water as most of the fertile land in western and northern Maharashtra has cash crops like sugarcane and grapes that require more water than other crops and the system is not adequate to provide adequate water for irrigation. Unless and until the state devises ways and means to tackle water shortage by using non-traditional ways, it will not be able to provide even drinking water to cities and rural areas. The industrial growth also is affected due to inadequate supply of water for process industries in the state.

The desperate administration is trying out whatever options are available for ensuring adequate drinking water supply in the state. The experimentation of cloud seeding for artificial rain in the Marathwada region has almost failed. The clouds in the region were not developed and dense to shoot for artificial precipitation.

The government has already earmarked Rs 7,000 crore for use of tankers for water supply to remote areas, fodder for animal, financial assistance for seeds and waiver in electricity bills and school-college fees. This is not adequate. The state government is in debt crisis and finds it difficult to raise adequate funds for meeting natural calamities like drought conditions. The state has decided to impose ‘drought tax’ on citizens residing in the state and raise around Rs 5000 crore per year. They want to hopefully use the fund for taking up long-term measures to face drought conditions in the state.

The Congress and NCP have opposed the proposed tax but Raju Shetty; farmers’ leader, who supports NDA in Parliament, liked the idea. “I will not oppose the tax if it is the last resort to raise funds for the drought affected people,” he says. Politics over drought will not help, situation calls for serious debate and brain-storming sessions to find a permanent solution.

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