Political Diary
New Delhi, 12 April 2016
Rising Farmers
Suicide
AACHAA, WHO MAR GAYA
KYA?
By Poonam I Kaushish
“People are dying. You are not serious. This is not some
picnic….How can you waste water on stadiums. Are people more important or IPL
matches?” Anguished words espoused by the Supreme Court and Bombay High Court
as they severely reprimanded three State Governments over its drought
preparedness and relief operations. Epitomizing, the country’s ennui to its farmers.
Big deal, year after year everyone goes through the
stereotype motions --- famine and relief are freely bandied about. Appropriate
noises, hollow concerns and instant remedies are voiced. All satisfied that
they have done their bit for the nation. Net result? Zilch.
Consider, even as 10 States battle drought and debt, the
Government owes over Rs 8261 crores as unpaid wages and another Rs 3686 crores
for materials under its rural job scheme. But it’s all water off a duck’s back.
Worse, so severe is the famine that not only are farmers
committing suicide but it has resulted in a full blown public health crisis.
Whereby, doctors in drought-struck regions are putting of surgeries as there is
no water even to wash their hands!
Take Latur, its five lakh population’s lifeline are water tankers
which come every two-three days. Worse, this water is so polluted that people
are contracting diseases like jaundice, typhoid and gastroentities. A vicious
annual cycle afflicting rural India
with merciless States watching as mute spectators.
Raising a moot point:
Does anyone really care? Do our
leaders know the reality of Asli Bharat
which they ad nauseum vow to protect. Bluntly, our politicians who follow the
dictum ‘might is right’ and operate like Gangs of Wasseypur have not only lost
the plot but are out of sync with the reality.
Alas, for them like the Dalits, OBC and minorities, farmers
too constitute a large vote-bank. Consequently, our netas talk big about kisans,
but do little. Consider. Over 65% of the population lives and works in agriculture,
or activities thereof. But, over the last 25 years the share of farming in the
economy has shrunk from over 33% to 15%.
Leading to public investment in kheti-baari steadily falling. Look at the absurdity. The Centre
earmarks thousands of crores subsidy for fertilizers, but a pittance for other
basic agriculture inputs.
This is not all. Since about 67 per cent of the population
is still dependent on rain, groundwater continues to be lifted
indiscriminately. Resulting in a sharp drop of 3 to 5 per cent every year in
the water tables (from 20-30 ft to 300-400 ft). In some areas all the three
levels of soil stand exhausted. Add to this, no plans are in the pipeline to
decongest highly populated areas, which result in too many tubewells and a
lowering of the groundwater table.
The harsh reality is that acute water shortage and
unseasonal rains have destroyed crops in over 93.81 lakh hectares in northern India alone
till date. In some regions drought-like situations prevail with too little rain
resulting in over 40% crop failures due to lack of irrigation, while floods in
others have lead to destruction of harvest.
What is indefensible is that the Government was forewarned
about the drought. Was it waiting for it to occur and then try and minimize the
impact? Some measures to ease the situation are elementary. Why was nothing
done to stop deforestation, which has resulted in drought-prone areas retaining
less water? What is being done to stop village tanks from being silted?
Believe it or not we don’t have a full-fledged
rain-harvesting plan wherein a large part of the problem could be solved by
harnessing this technology, which could be optimally managed at the local
self-government level. Unfortunately, politicians have muddied the waters
leading to large areas, which once had abundant water supply, now reeling under
water shortage.
Appallingly in the last twenty years alone over 346,538
farmers committed suicide, an average of 16,500 casualties annually or 45
deaths every day according to the National Crime Records Bureau. However,
agricultural experts aver the actual number of suicides is treble of this. In
Punjab, the country’s food bowl in 11 districts till three years ago almost
6,926 farmers and farm labourers committed suicide.
Further, the farm sector is crippled by high
indebtedness. While the all-India
aggregate rests at 51.9%, Andhra Pradesh has the highest share of indebted
agricultural households 92.9% followed by Southern brethrens Telengana 89.1,
Tamil Nadu 82.5, Kerala and Karnataka at 77.7% and 77.3%. Shockingly, Rajasthan
is next with 61.8% and Punjab at 53.2%.
Worse, despite the country boasting of great ancient rivers
and plentiful waters, throats remain parched till death finally ends the agony.
Think. Year after year hunger devours Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Gujarat,
Orissa, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and UP. This year’s
“aridity map” shows “severe arid conditions”.
Questionably, why must we always depend upon rain for food
production? Especially when 4,000 billion cubic meters of rain --- 75 per cent
of the total rain --- falls during the 70 to 90 days of monsoon? Only 1000
billion cubic meteres fall during the remaining nine months. Moreover, the
rainfall varies from a low of 0.50 to 55 mm and a high of 12,000-13,000 mm.
Also, when we know that our land and water resources are
stretched beyond limits due to our burgeoning population. India’s landmass of
329 million hectares accounts for only 2 per cent of the globe’s land area,
while its population accounts for 16 per cent. Thus, our ancient land’s
carrying capacity has been exhausted.
One of the reasons for the failure of the Government to
provide any permanent solution to the problem of recurring drought is our
polity’s miniscule emphasis on national priorities, refusal to take into
account local realities and failure to set our agriculture agenda. Whereby, the
money spent, though astronomical, has always been on the “dig and fill-up”
variety type with no attempt to link grants to permanent assets creation which
could take care of people during distress.
Alarmingly, there is no effective coordination between
various rural development programmes. The Agriculture and Water Resources
Ministries work in opposite direction. Each Minister and his babus guard their fiefdom with
zealousness. Let alone coordination, even silly information is shrouded in
secrecy.
Equally scandalous every Government since Independence
continues to depend helplessly on the weatherman’s predictions, which have
almost invariably gone wrong. All are aware that the world is under the grip of
the El Nino affect. Global warming has reached worrisome heights where even the
glaciers of Antarctica are melting rapidly.
What next? There are no short-cuts possible. It is high time
no-nonsense Modi ensures his Administration lives up to expectations. Netas have to shed their desire to
pander to vote banks and reluctance to focus on long-term rather than
short-term planning, resulting in the annual scourge of drought in one part of
the country or another.
Thus, in this callous kaam
chalao and aachaa, woh mar gaya kya
milieu if we continue like this the sewage of the present will completely drain
India’s future. What gives? ----- INFA
(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)
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