Retreating monsoon leaves trail of death and destruction across much of India
The retreating monsoon is leaving a trail of death and destruction across much of India. Floods have submerged three states in misery, while a severe drought has left two others high and dry. The toll: around 10 million people affected in the past month alone. The Union and state governments have responded to the crises predictably. They are all at sea.
Floods have claimed more than 400 lives in Orissa, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Another seven million people have lost their homes and crops in the three states. Simultaneously, a drought-induced debt trap has forced about 200 farmers in Karnataka to commit suicide. Jharkhand, too, is reeling under a dry spell. The Union home ministry's disaster management department -- the nodal agency for coordinating relief (except for drought and epidemic outbreak) -- is inundated with pleas for financial assistance from states. An official put the sum sought through preliminary requests at Rs 10,000 crore.
The floods that lashed 23 of Orissa's 30 districts have affected over 35 lakh people. As many as 1,44,716 houses collapsed and standing crop on 4,77,570 hectares got damaged. Even four days after the floodwaters had receded, 840 villages remained cut-off from the mainland. The state government's reaction was predictable. Besides undertaking a damage assessment exercise to secure central assistance, it resurrected its two-decade-old plan of constructing another dam downstream of the Hirakud reservoir as a safeguard. Inexplicably, since the 1982 floods, authorities in Orissa have never given a thought to repairing 840 kilometres of vulnerable river embankments.
In Karnataka, the second consecutive drought was the last straw for many farmers. Though 208 farmers committed suicide as per independent estimates, the state government admitted to only 20 out of the 156 cases that were placed before a committee to assess compensation eligibility. Officially, 136 taluk s have already been notified as drought-affected (the figure was 156 last year). Though the government had sensed drought at the onset of monsoon, hardly any pre-emptive measures were taken. In the face of subsequent droughts, the failure of the government credit systems, erratic power supply, collapse of fair price shops and mismanaged food-for-work programmes pushed farmers into a debt trap.
For its part, the Union government is planning to form a disaster force for quick relief operations. However, experts already doubt the effectiveness of this force; its operation under a centralised command may end up creating just another hierarchical tier in disaster management. As the debate over disaster management continues, so does the people's suffering: in flood-hit states, the threat of epidemics now looms large.
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