India - Risk Proofing

The average middle class Indian, with his life and medical insurance, and pension plan, will be surprised if told that he faces a high-risk existence. But he does. Most of India would have been as barren as the Thar desert but for the monsoon, more particularly the south west monsoon. And nobody till today fully understands the phenomenon. Some of the complex global climatic elements governing air currents and ocean surface temperatures are understood and hence have emerged mathematical models run on super-computers to predict the monsoon. But the fact that such prediction is not very accurate means we live a good bit in the dark and keep simply hoping for good rains year after year. To such uncertainty has been added a new one — climate change resulting from global warming. The worst part of this new development is not that the weather will take a particular course but that it will become more unpredictable.


To begin with, the monsoon is a three-month phenomenon. So the difference between good and bad times for most of India depends on what kind of rain it gets in three out of 12 months. Even within these three months, rainfall is not evenly distributed. There are around three episodes of heavy rain lasting for about three days each. Hence, whether the monsoon has arrived on time, say, hit the Kerala coast dead on June 1, is no guarantee that it will turn out to be a good monsoon for the year. The progress of the monsoon across the country, taking nearly the whole of June for it to reach the north-west, is variable. Often, after arriving on time, the monsoon disappears or the monsoon currents weaken. Then the whole country waits for the monsoon to “revive”. Even when a wayward monsoon revives, there can be a sting at the end. Sometimes it rains excessively in the last phase creating floods and damaging the standing paddy crop, which would have been ready for harvesting as the cooler weather sets in.


To get a full idea of this unpredictability, see what has happened in Karnataka this year till now. The pre-monsoon showers were particularly good this year. While most of us welcome them for the relief they bring from the summer heat, they are particularly good for the coffee crop they help in blossoming. But grape growers pray for dry weather and heat at around the same time so that the grapes can ripen and sweeten and produce a good vintage. The grape crop this year was heading for a great vintage but liberal pre-monsoon showers and the early onset of a robust monsoon put paid to such expectations.
The wine makers were miserable but the rest of the state was happy. Early and good rains brought forward paddy planting (a higher demand for fertilisers caught the government off guard), creating hopes of a rise in crop acreage and good agricultural prospects in a state that is semi-arid in parts and heavily dependent on rained cultivation. But after having arrived on time, the monsoon disappeared. As July progressed, cries went up all round expressing fears of a drought and failed harvest. Water levels in reservoirs went down critically. To preserve a minimum amount of water, discharges from reservoirs were restricted, hydro power output went down and power cuts set in. But in the pervasive gloom, weather men predicted a revival of the monsoon in peninsular India. True enough, there has been widespread rain in most of the state in the last ten days. Variations on this theme occur in different states across the country year after year. And with climate change, such unpredictability and resultant risk will only increase.
What is the solution? Obviously to increase irrigation so that the dependence on the precise progress of the monsoon (it will continue to supply most of the water) from day to day is reduced. But only around 40 per cent of the cropped area in India is irrigated and most of the irrigation potential that can be realised through large dams and canal systems has already been achieved. Also, as the wisdom of creating such projects is now questioned, the future lies elsewhere. The entire country, covering every village, has to go in for a programme of saving and storing water, below and above the ground, as part of overall watershed development programmes. Individual programmes have been around for long, undertaken by state governments, sometimes as part of overseas development assistance. In the last union Budget, a rain-fed area development programme was announced with a small allocation to cover areas not coming under various watershed development programmes.
An enormous irrigation potential still remains untapped in most villages, where the first task is to rejuvenate tanks and, where possible, construct them. Rainwater, which mostly runs off, has to be channelled into wells, which both store the water and recharge groundwater. Wherever possible, bunds have to be constructed to create small reservoirs. The next bigger step is to prevent soil erosion by creating first grass and then tree cover over land that has become denuded, leading to rapid run-off of rainwater. As soon as the scope for the latter increases, villages in a watershed area need to co-operate, requiring planning at the taluk or district level.
This is hardly rocket science; innumerable successful examples of such grassroots water harvesting initiatives exist from pre-canal irrigation days. What needs doing is vastly upscaling them to cover every nook and corner of the country. More and reliable supply of water alone, without an additional gram of fertiliser or unit of electricity (water in recharged wells can be lifted out by using the bullocks already there), can greatly mitigate the risks posed by the vagaries of the monsoon and the additional risks likely to be posed by global warming.