Maharashtra is facing one of the worst droughts this year. Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar as well as chief minister Prithviraj Chavan have said that this year’s drought is worse than the one in 1972, which was termed as a ‘famine’. Ironically, Maharashtra has the highest number of large dams in the country and is now claimed to be suffering the worst drought in four decades or more.

However, an analysis of the rainfall figures and the monthly rainfall pattern in 1972 and 2012 with respect to the normal rainfall pattern in 17 drought-affected districts shows a different picture. From a meteorological and agricultural point of view, this year’s drought cannot be called worse than that in 1972. It is possible that hydrologically, this year’s drought may prove to be worse than 1972 for some districts. The blame for this lies entirely on wrong decisions about building unviable and undesirable large dams, wrong cropping patterns, diversion of water for non-priority uses, neglect of local water systems and unaccountable water management by the Maharashtra government, Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority (MWRRA, set up in 2005 under a World Bank funded programme) as well as the union government.

Let us look at the figures of the rainfall of 1972 and 2012. Detailed figures (see Table 1 in our detailed blog at:
http://sandrp.wordpress.com/2013/03/30/how-is-2012-13-maharashtra-drought-worse-than-the-one-in-1972/) shows monthly normal and actual rainfall for 1972 and 2012  for the months of June to October and their total for the 17 districts mentioned as drought affected: Ahmednagar, Pune, Solapur, Sangli, Satara, Aurangabad, Beed, Jalna, Latur, Osmanabad,Nanded, Akola, Parbhani, Buldhana, Nashik, Dhule and Jalgaon. When the monthly rainfall of 1972 and 2012 shows more than 50% deficit from normal, it is marked in red background for 1972 and in red numbers for 2012. [It may be noted here that the meteorological office calls rainfall deficient when deficit is 20-60% and scanty when deficit is more than 60%. We have used the figure for 50% just for comparison here.]

It is clear from the Table 1 that in June 2012, eight districts had monthly rainfall less than half the normal. In July 2012, no district showed a deficit rainfall more than 50%. In August 2012, the deficit was more than 50% in case of three districts: Aurangabad, Jalna and Osmanabad (these three districts also experienced over 50% deficit in June). This was the case for only Jalna in September 2012 and for Dhule and Jalgaon in October 2012. It seems from this comparison that Aurangabad, Jalna and Osmanabad were some of the worst drought-affected districts this year, which is indeed the case.

In comparison, the number of districts that faced more than 50% deficit in monthly rainfall in 1972 were: 3 in June, 9 in July, 9 in August, 6 in September and all 17 in October 1972. This comparison between 1972 and 2012 for the number of districts facing over 50% deficit in monsoon months clearly tells us that the 1972 rainfall was much lower than the 2012 rainfall for every month with the sole exception of June.

Table 2 gives the total rainfall of these five months (June-October) in a normal year, in 1972 and in 2012 for these districts. This table also gives the 2012 rainfall as percentage of the normal rainfall and as percentage of 1972 rainfall in separate columns. It is clear from this comparison that only in case of two districts (Sangli and Dhule) is the 2012 rainfall substantially lower  than 1972. In two other districts (Jalna and Satara) the rainfall in 2012 is lower than that in 1972, but difference is less than 7% in both cases. In remaining 13 districts, the monsoon rainfall in 2012 was more than that in 1972.

While comparing the 1972 and 2012-13 droughts, it must be kept in mind that rainfall in 1971, the year before the 1972 drought was also low. In comparison, rainfall in Maharashtra was above average in 2011 and most of the dams were full. The Maharashtra Economic Survey for 2011-12 notes, “Total rainfall in the State during 2011 was 102.3 per cent of the normal rainfall.” The state agriculture commissioner had stated in 2011: “The good distribution of rain 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.” [See more here]

In addition, Maharashtra has by far the largest number of big dams in India, most of which were absent in 1972. In the 40 years since then, Maharashtra has built a very large number of big dams, ostensibly to help these drought-prone areas. For example, Aurangabad has Jayakwadi project (completed in 1976), Beed has Mazalagaon project (Jayakwadi stage II), Jalna has Upper Dudhna and Lower Dudhna projects. Osmanabad depends partly on Ujani dam, partly on schemes in Krishna basin, Solapur completely depends on Ujani. Live storage of most of the dams in drought affected districts is either zero or near zero today. All these projects and increased groundwater use facilities in 2012 should actually be able to reduce the impact of rainfall deficit in 2012, which is lower than the deficit of 1972. But the situation is actually the worse in 2012 compared to 1972, claims the chief minister and the union agriculture minister. So what are the reasons for this? For one, area under sugarcane in Maharashtra was 167,000 ha in 1970-71, and it has gone up to 1022,000 ha in 2011-12 (Maharashtra economic survey 2012-13).

As can be seen from the profiles of some of the districts given in the table and accompanying chart, Solapur, Pune, Ahmednagar, Sangli, Satara, Osmanabad, Beed, Latur, Nashik, Jalna, Parbhani and Aurangabad, all drought prone and drought affected districts are major sugar producing centres of the state. They collectively produce 79.5% of sugar produced in Maharashtra. According to Maharashtra Economic Survey for 2012-13, “As on December 31, 2012, out of the total sugar production in the country, the share of state was 35.3 percent.” So, the drought-prone districts of Maharashtra produce more than a quarter of India’s sugar!

As one travelled during March 2013 in some of the drought-affected districts like Pune, Solapur, Ahmednagar and Nashik one saw unending fields of sugarcane, and some of banana and grapes, on both sides of the road. Many of these fields were planted after August 2012 when it was known that Maharashtra would be facing a drought this year. There was no attempt by anyone in the Maharashtra government or administration to curb the planting of sugarcane and other water intensive crops or to curb any of the water intensive activities like running of sugar and wine factories in the drought affected districts. The builders continued to advertise sale of houses attached with swimming pools in drought-affected areas. Maharashtra continues to divert millions of cubic metres of water every day, out of the Krishna and Bheema basin, to the Konkan area with average rainfall of over 3,000 mm. The manager of a Solapur hotel said that there was no water scarcity. Groundwater levels are down, but there seemed little sign of drought in most of these areas. The poor and the cattle are facing the water shortage. However, it seems those who had the money and power continued to get as much water as they needed, for whatever purpose they want it for. An NDTV programme on March 29, 2013 accused NCP leaders of stealing water in times of drought.

Amazingly, the Maharashtra economic survey for 2012-13, published after March 19, does not mention that the state is suffering from drought, leave aside giving details of the drought-prone areas. Interestingly, it says that during the 2012 monsoon, Maharashtra suffered rainfall deficit of 9.7% and that 10 districts and 136 talukas had deficit over 25%. And yet the survey reported that water availability situation was alarming in 13 districts: Aurangabad, Jalna, Beed, Osmanabad, Nanded, Ahmednagar, Nashik, Jalgaon Pune, Satara, Sangli, Solapur and Buldhana. These districts, the survey said, suffered “very severe water scarcity”. It said 1,779 villages were supplied water through tankers as on March 4, topping the list was Aurangabad division with 771 villages. 4,709 wadis were also supplied water through tankers, topping the list here was Pune division with 3,197 wadis.

MWRRA and the state machinery have entirely failed in managing water levels at Jayakwadi and Ujni dams and releases from the upstream dam releases. There has been no serious attempt at controlling area under sugarcane and sugarcane crushing in the drought areas or controlling unauthorised sugarcane cultivation around Ujani backwaters, or unauthorised lifts from upstream of many dams like Nandur Madhyameshwar and through canal systems Majalgaon project or lifting of water from the river beds for sugarcane or curbing other non essential water intensive activities. In fact, all efforts have been towards increasing the area under sugarcane and other water intensive activities in the drought prone areas. In affidavit in the high court, the Maharashtra government said on March 28, 2013 that MWRRA effectively does not exist!

Forty years after Maharashtra’s worst drought of 1972, the state seem to be in a worse situation this year, despite spending lakhs of crores on irrigation projects and despite putting in place numerous institutions and authorities to manage water. While the 1972 drought could be called a natural calamity, the 2012-13 drought is a disaster of water management accompanied by corruption, extremely water intensive cropping pattern unsuitable for the drought prone areas, pushed by the government and the politicians, top heavy institutions without local participation or transparency, absence of responsive disaster management system and absence of a long term view to manage drought.

Parineeta Dandekar (parineeta.dandekar@gmail.com) and Himanshu Thakkar (ht.sandrp@gmail.com) are with South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers & People (www.sandrp.inwww.sandrp.in).