Bad monsoon is bad news for the UPA

News that this year’s monsoon has been severely deficient could not have come at a worse time for the UPA government. The Centre is all set to introduce the Food Security Act, guaranteeing 25kg of wheat and rice at Rs3 to every poor household in the country.

Simply put, there may not be enough grain to go around if we hit a low in the monsoon spell. “We would need at least 40 million tonnes of buffer in the case of wheat before we dare introduce the Bill.

Right now we keep 28 million tonnes of wheat as buffer, and we
need at least two years of buffer in mind before we go ahead with the Bill. Because, frankly, since the food security bill is enforceable through courts, we cannot take any chances,” said a senior source in the ministry.

This is not the only worry for the government and the Congress party. At the last Union Cabinet meeting, prime minister Manmohan Singh not only expressed concern over food scarcity in case of a drought-like situation, but also inter-state water disputes as water reservoirs have hit a 10-year low.

“The Congress party has directly linked this with upcoming assembly polls in Haryana. Polls are due in March next year, but the Congress was of the view that the elections should be called concurrently with those in Maharashtra in October-November. Now, the fix is that the Congress cannot decide whether the effect of a deficient monsoon will be more apparent sooner rather than later,” said a senior minister of the UPA.

“All sorts of issues like Haryana’s ongoing water dispute with Punjab or angry farmers feeding anti-incumbency could come in the meanwhile. We are yet to make an assessment,” the minister said.

Rains are crucial in India where more than 60% of agriculture is rain-fed and rain is one variable that no one has got a grip on.