Political maths

Everybody loves a good drought, especially political parties. Barely ten days after Union minister for Agriculture Ajit Singh announced that...

Everybody loves a good drought, especially political parties. Barely ten days after Union minister for Agriculture Ajit Singh announced that the country is on the verge of the worst drought in 12 years, the NDA government-Congress rift over managing it had reared its head.

Much like the spat over relief payments during the Orissa cyclone, this one too threatened to turn ugly. The NDA government8217;s mollycoddling of the TDP has set an extremely bad precedent with Congress chief ministers, disgruntled over what they perceive as discriminatory treatment meted out to them, constantly citing the Chandrababu Naidu example.

Fortunately, during Monday8217;s meeting between Congress leaders and the prime minister, there was at least the enunciation of the principle that an issue of this nature should not be politicised. That the nation must act as one in arriving at the quantum of relief disbursement to the various affected states.

In many ways, the quantum of relief disbursed is not as important as ensuring that this money actually reaches the communities that need it. This is where governments have failed resoundingly in the past and CAG reports have faithfully chronicled numerous drought-related mini scams that have resulted in relief money lining the pockets of local administrators, contractors and others, even as farmers and agricultural labourers are driven to starvation8217;s door.

There must therefore be some synergy between the assessments made at the ground level by local revenue officials and the disbursal of funds. The decision taken at Monday8217;s meeting of setting up a monitoring committee at the district level, consisting of local MPs, MLAs and panchayat officials to monitor and distribute relief work, is a step in the right direction.

Since much time has already been lost in the government waking up to the grim reality of parched fields in large swathes of the country, a sense of urgency should now mark relief work. While compensation for crop loss, waiver or deferred payment of loans, and so on, will go some way in helping drought-hit farmers, what is most important is to unload those man-made mountains in government silos and use this grain to run food-for-work programmes in regions where acute distress has already raised its head. Three words must mark the action: just move it.