Enough rain, but all gone for cane

Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar and chief minister Prithviraj Chavan are on record that the drought in Maharashtra this year is the worst since 1972, when parts of the state suffered a famine.

However, a comparison of the rainfall figures in the 17 drought-hit districts for the respective years, reported by the state government and the meteorological department, suggests that they might be exaggerating the situation, to obfuscate the larger misuse of available water resources in the affected areas.

The figures speak for themselves. Only two districts of Sangli and Dhule received substantially lower rainfall in 2012 as compared to that in 1972. Two other districts of Jalna and Satara also got less rainfall last year, but the difference from that in 1972 is smaller than 7%. But, in the other 13 districts that have been identified as drought-affected, the rainfall last year was in fact more than that in famine year 40 years ago.

The 2012 monthly statistics show that eight of the 17 districts suffered a 50% deficit of rainfall in June, none of them were deficit in July, three districts were deficit in August (the three –  Aurangabad, Jalna, Osmanabad – were also deficit in June), only Jalna was deficit in September, and Dhule and Jalgaon were deficit in October. Overall, it is evident that just Aurangabad, Jalna and Osmanabad received the lowest rainfall in the last monsoon season.

Compare this with the 1972 monthly statistics: three districts were 50% rain deficit in June, nine districts were deficit in July, nine districts were deficit in August, six in October and 17 districts were deficit in October! So, with the exception of the month of June, the rainfall in these 17 districts in the other four months in 1972 was much lower than that in 2012.

When comparing the figures for the respective years, it must be kept in mind that the rainfall in 1971 (the monsoon season in the year before 1972) was also low, while the rainfall in 2011 (in the season before 2012) was above average and most of the dams were full.

This was noted in the Maharashtra Economic Survey report for 2011-12: “Total rainfall in the state during 2011 was 102.3% of the normal rainfall.” The state agriculture commissioner described the benefits, saying that “the good distribution of rain (in 2011) has resulted in good quality of crops. The above average rainfall has filled up nearly all dams which will help replenish the soil in the run-up to the rabi season.”

Analysts point out that there is something seriously wrong in the management of water resources that is hurting certain areas repeatedly.

“From a meteorological and agricultural point of view, the drought this year cannot be termed as worse than that in 1972,” says Parineeta Dandekar of the South Asia Network for Dams Rivers and People. “This year’s drought may turn out to be worse for some districts, hydrologically speaking, but the blame for this lies entirely on wrong decisions to build unviable and undesirable large dams, wrong cropping patterns, the diversion of water for non-priority uses, the neglect of local water systems and the unaccountable water management by the state government, the Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority (that was set up in 2005 with World Bank funds) as well as the Union government.”

What’s worse, the state has by far the largest number of big dams in the country, and most of them were built after 1972, ostensibly to help drought-prone areas. Some examples are Jayakwadi (completed in 1976) in Aurangabad, Mazalagaon (Jayakwadi Stage II) in Beed, Upper Dudhna and Lower Dudhna in Jalna. Osmanabad depends partly on water from Ujani dam and partly on schemes in the Krishna basin. Solapur depends totally on water from Ujani.

However, the live storage of most dams in the drought-affected districts today is zero.
These projects, together with the increased groundwater use facilities should have  reduced the impact of the rain deficit last year that is lower than the deficit 40 years ago. But the Union agriculture minister and the chief minister say that the situation this year is worse than in 1972. What is the reason for this?

For one, the area under sugar cane cultivation in the state has increased from 1,67,000 ha in 1970-71, to 10,22,000 ha in 2011-12 (Maharashtra Economic Survey 2012-13). That’s a six-fold growth. Today, drought-prone, drought-affected districts of Solapur, Pune, Ahmednagar, Sangli, Satara, Osmanabad, Beed, Latur, Nashik, Jalna, Parbhani and Aurangabad produce 79.5% of the sugar grown in Maharashtra.

According to the 2012-13 state economic survey, “As on 31st December 2012, out of the total sugar production in the country, the share of state was 35.3%”. So more than a quarter of the country’s sugar production comes from the drought-prone districts of Maharashtra!

What is interesting to note is that most of the sugar cane in the last season was planted after August 2012, after it was officially accepted that Maharashtra faced a drought. In fact, the Sugar Diary 2013 published by the Vasantdada Sugar Institute says that 20 new sugar factories have been sanctioned in Solapur district, five of these in Madha, which is in Sharad Pawar’s constituency.

“Despite hardships due to the drought, sugar factories owned by politicians are still being sanctioned. There’s no attempt by anyone in the state administration to curb either the planting of water-intensive sugar cane or the running of water-intensive industries like sugar and wine in the drought-affected districts,” says Dandekar. “While the poor suffer drinking water shortage, those who have money and power continue to waste as much water as they want.” Repeated attempts to reach Chavan or Pawar for comments, were unsuccessful.