Graph of the Day: India Rain Distribution, June-August 2009
by Rahul Goswami The first reports of drought-related suicides have begun filtering in from the district press. Farmers in the eastern coastal state of Andhra Pradesh are taking their own lives – the toll is said to be 20 farmers over the last 40 days. The state is one amongst many which has so far been forsaken by the South-West monsoon in 2009. Its parched districts have received only 153 mm of rain as against a monsoon normal, till mid-August, of 624 mm. An official with the state agriculture department has called the conditions the worst in 50 years. But the state government has still not declared Andhra Pradesh as hit by drought. Such declarations have in India become politically charged positions that the state ruling is forced to take, instead of being policy conclusions that can quickly bring relief and rehabilitation. The conditions in Andhra Pradesh are bad, and just how serious they are will have hit home only because of these saddening reports. For those who have been watching the uneven progress of the monsoon, the question is: the signs were there to see by end-June, so why did state administrations and the central government not react weeks earlier? The signs were indeed there. The first drought declaration came on 25 June, from the north-eastern state of Manipur. Its neighbours, the states of Assam and Nagaland, followed on 14 and 15 July. The central Indian state of Jharkhand followed with its drought declaration on 20 July. Between 25 and 30 July the huge state of Uttar Pradesh declared drought in various districts. On 6 August its western neighbour, Himachal Pradesh, declared drought. And on 10 August its eastern neighbour Bihar did so. Today, 167 of India’s 593 districts are declared as being affected by drought. Absent from this list are districts in the states of Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. The rain deficit is now at least moderate and otherwise severe in most of the meteorological subdivisions that cover these states. There are outright drought conditions in several states including major foodgrain producing states. The water stocks position is worsening in the country’s major reservoirs – these are monitored every day by the Central Water Commission. Already, at the beginning of June, water stocks were under extraordinary stress with a number of India’s major reservoirs recording levels under their ten-year lows. …
