Water, water

Here is a story to lap up for all those thirsting for good developmental news. It is a report from Dewas, a low-profile town near the capi...

Here is a story to lap up for all those thirsting for good developmental news. It is a report from Dewas, a low-profile town near the capital of the hardly high-tech Madhya Pradesh, about a wonder of a water conservation mission, and it makes two noteworthy revelations. It shows what an individual agent of de- velopment can do about the distress of a drought-prone area, and what India can do about one of its perennial problems. Collector M. Mohan Rao is no mere rain-maker; his has been the rarer miracle of meeting the problem, to which a merciful monsoon was supposed to be the only solution, with a simple but scientific solution backed by popular initiative and mobilisation.

Dewas is today a picture of water-harvesting structures on building roofs, all raised during a one-year drive, which testify really to the success of a groundwater-tapping and conservation programme. Funded largely by public contributions and carried forward with near-complete public participation, the pilot scheme under a groundwater recharge mission8217; has proved a pioneering experiment, inviting similar other efforts in the neighbourhood.

Clearly, the example cries out for emulation elsewhere in the state and the country as well. The objective of the programme effective management and utilisation of groundwater resources is to tackle an intractable issue which has impeded development. Other similar issues that escape solution range from recurring droughts over large parts of the country to inter-state river disputes. There are many a dust-gathering expert study urging adoption and expansion of dry farming as the ideal remedy to both these afflictions.

It is not as if science alone can achieve the objective or the community as a whole can be counted upon to cooperate in every case. The task has called for a tough will even in the MP town, and it has been displayed by a Rao determined to regulate use of groundwater resources and their reckless exploitation by the richer sections of the community. The task, enlarged manifold for the country as a whole, will call for a proportionately tougher political will. Easy optimism on this score is not encouraged by the country8217;s experience of the political clout of the affluent farmers8217; lobby prevailing over public interests, including those of agriculture.

Illustratively, the National Bank of Agricultural Research and Development has, for long years, been trying to persuade states, particularly the drought-prone ones, to legislate for some regulation of groundwater tapping and trying in vain. It is common knowledge that free or heavily subsidised power for farmers has only increased the extent of the scarce water resources8217; inexcusably inefficient use, but the consideration has not compelled any serious contemplation of even steps short of the NABARD8217;s suggestion. Attempts at introduction of drip and sprinkler farming, water-saving techniques known to have helped a desert bloom in Israel, have never taken off. Industries have been extremely reluctant to encourage such initiatives and innovations in sectors of farming that feed them, with the sugar industry and sugarcane farming providing a striking instance. If the right lessons are drawn from it, Dewas can lead to a much bigger success story.