Babus slept while wake-up calls buzzed

Babus slept while wake-up calls buzzed
SAIKAT DATTA

PUNE, APRIL 27: It is a classic case of fire fighting after the house has burnt down. While the Central and State Governments of Rajasthan and Gujarat cry hoarse about aid and grants, it seems all this could have been avoided.

Simply because this drought had been predicted by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) nearly six months ago. Just after the last monsoons had ended, report after report had sent enough indicators to powers that be of the nightmare that would hit them this summer.

Traditionally arid zones, Saurashtra and Kutch had been subjected to a severe minus 58 per cent anomaly in the last monsoons. From the fortnightly Aridity Index report (the last report was on the period between October 8 to 21) that is published during the monsoons to the final monsoon report, all said the same thing. That rainfall in these areas was dismal.

Something that sources in the weather department say was enough to indicate that a major problem was on hand. "The IMD had issued the relevant bulletins indicating that rainfall had been scarce in these areas," confirmed Dr U S De, additional director general, IMD.

Sources also point out that the information that is culled in the various reports go all the way to the top. From the Prime Minister's Office to the departments of Agriculture, Science and Technology, the chief secretaries of the State Governments and also to the state meteorological departments for further dissemination.

And if they knew, why didn't anyone act is anybody's guess. "Sheer insensitive bureaucracy," says a senior IMD official. "Everybody knows how crucial the monsoons are and this kind of an indication should have got them cracking."

Adds a source at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), "The reports clearly indicate that things were not fine. When the report indicates that there is a 58 per cent deficiency then that means there is a meteorological drought."

Droughts come in stages. Deficient rainfall in the region of 20 to 50 per cent means a meteorological drought. As other factors like heat, eva-transportation come in and depletes the water level, then it becomes a hydrological drought. As crops start dying then it is called an agricultural drought.

"When the officials had enough information indicating meteorological drought than they should have acted," says an IITM official.

Meanwhile, most government agencies say that this drought caught everybody by surprise is not true. Reports culled from IMD statistics show that Saurashtra and Kutch had droughts from 1875 to as recent as 1995. Similarly, Gujarat had a drought in 1987 which was also a national drought. Rajasthan also reported a drought in 1991.

What's more, reports from IMD issued for the period of June 1 to September 1999 clearly mention that four out of 19 districts (no prizes for guessing which ones) received scanty rainfall. Out of the remaining 15, a whopping 11 got deficient rainfall. Rajasthan fared no better with 14 out of 32 districts getting deficient rainfall.

Inadequate rainfall meant tapping into fast depleting ground water resources - a prescription for further disaster. With sea water seeping into the Gujarat coastline and then moving inward, the people there are looking at a bleak future.

Lack of information

While droughts are monitored real time by the Drought Research Unit (DRU) at the IMD, there is no agency that puts information together to anticipate such calamities. In the late '80s, the IMD along with the National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), Hyderabad, had embarked on a project to monitor droughts. Unfortunately the last time they did get together was in 1991. "We are trying to revive that project," says K C Sinha-Roy, director, DRU. Meanwhile, weather department officials cite lack of funds to the NRSA refusing to give data for free as some of the reasons for the project lying dormant.