It is a familiar story: By the end of June, India had a monsoon deficit of 40 per cent. In the first week of July, the deficit was 12 per cent. This week was also the only one since the delayed onset of monsoon that reported above normal rainfall; however, the India Meteorological Department has forecast a below-normal monsoon for the month. With sowing hit in June, and July being the most critical month for rainfall—it accounts for 30 per cent of total seasonal rainfall—the government has rolled out one of the most extensive crisis management plans of recent years. Experiences from past severe droughts, including those in 2014 and 2009, suggest that a rain deficit in July makes drought imminent.
El Niño adds a new dimension this year.
On July 7, the Prime Minister’s Office held a high-level meeting of representatives from 15 ministries to take stock of emergency management plans in the face of the unfolding crisis, notably for drought. Some 262 districts have updated their district agriculture contingency plans to fight the disruption in the monsoon, while the Indian Council for Agricultural Research has issued standard operating procedures for “Managing El Niño Risks in Indian Agriculture”. While it has been many years since India has faced a drought, conversations around this trigger curiosity on how drought-proof the country is.
Drought is a historical reality for India, a disaster it has over 150 years of organised experience in managing. Every eight to nine years, a severe drought has struck the country, according to historical trends. The Department of Science and Technology says 279 districts are at “very high” and “high” drought risk. Nearly a third of India is chronically drought-prone.
The impact of a drought invokes dread because it affects not just the poorest population but also pushes millions into the poverty trap. Recovery from this shock takes years, if not decades. Going by some studies, a poor farmer takes three to four years to recover from a drought, depending on severity. According to a study by the International Rice Research Institute and the Japan International Research Centre for Agricultural Sciences, drought is a major factor for keeping people below the poverty line forever. The study found that in a severe drought year, farmers in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha lost close to US $400 million. At a time when the rural economy seems stagnant due to near-zero wage growth, a drought this year will deal a severe blow.
India’s food security is also critically linked to drought and drought-prone areas. Two-fifths of the cultivable lands are in drought-prone districts, and over 50 per cent of the rural workforce is concentrated in these areas. Agriculture is dominantly rain-fed, and any drought-like situation has immediate impacts on yield and production.
At the same time, a drought acts as an effectiveness gauge of drought-proofing measures. For over seven decades, India has been running extensive water and soil conservation programmes with an implicit objective of drought-proofing the country. Most rural development pro-grammes, including the new wage employment guarantee programme, comes with the mandate of drought-proofing agriculture, thus insulating local livelihoods. Under the erstwhile Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), 12.5 million water-harvesting and conservation assets have been created. A study by the Institute of Economic Growth found that such structures were effective in improving quality of land and soil, protecting farms from drought impacts. As they say, drought is a disaster one sees coming from a distance. This year, we appear prepared, and past investment on water and land conservation should bear results. This is another reason the coming drought will be closely observed.