On April 13, the India Meteorological Department issued its first update for the coming monsoon season. The monsoon season is expected to be mostly below normal. The probability of it being even above normal to excess is almost ruled out. More importantly, many of the rainfall districts will face below-normal rain. Very few areas of the country will receive normal to above-normal rainfall.
This is mainly due to the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) effect. El Niño and La Niña are two weather patterns that occur in the Pacific Ocean. They are part of a larger climate phenomenon called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Both have significant effects on global weather, influencing rainfall and temperatures. El Niño typically leads to reduced monsoon rainfall, while La Niña tends to strengthen the monsoon.
ENSO is expected to set in, in June. But the effect will begin to be felt in July. So, the current expectation is that ENSO will have its effect in the second half of the monsoon season rather than the full monsoon. However, as we write this, ENSO is developing rapidly in the Pacific. It may occur even earlier.
A couple of other minor consolations are the negative correlation between the Northern Hemisphere or Eurasian snow cover and the rainfall in the subsequent monsoon season. Between January and March 2026, Eurasian snow cover was below normal. That augurs better for the precipitation during the monsoon season. Of course, that has been factored into the seasonal forecast. Second, the IOD — Indian Ocean Dipole — counterpart to ENSO, but in the Indian Ocean, will also be counteracting the effect of ENSO on India’s Southwest Monsoon. But IOD is expected to have its effect only in the second half of the monsoon season. This has already been factored into the rainfall assessment.
Another minor relief is that the Super ENSO phenomenon, which has an even greater impact on the monsoon rainfall, is setting in much after India’s monsoon season officially ends. So, India’s rainfall will not be much impacted by the Super ENSO. It is expected that this year’s ENSO phenomenon will have a bigger impact on Southeast Asia, Indonesia and Australia. The ENSO effect usually lasts nine to 12 months.
It will be good to treat this year’s ENSO effect as yet another warning sign for the country to get its act together on water. In the past, ENSO occurred once every two to seven years. Now, the gap between two ENSOs appears to have shrunk, and its intensity is also increasing. That is not good news. Second, while India’s average rainfall is expected to hold up reasonably well in the years to come, notwithstanding this year’s ENSO, at least until the end of the decade, it is widely known that precipitation will become narrower in both spatial and temporal scales. That is, rainfall may have a concentrated geographic footprint and occur in shorter intervals. The occurrence of recent years’ rainfall and this year’s forecasts also reflect this.
The image of a steady drizzle throughout the day, misty skies and an atmosphere that lends itself to quiet contemplation and relaxed minds over a cup of chai and a hot samosa or pakora while watching the monsoon rain has given way to concerns about the damage that fast, furious downpours will cause. It is all about deluge and not drizzle. That means taking water management more seriously than we have done so far.
Civilisations have flourished and perished because of water. India has been witness to that itself. Therefore, we will be doing ourselves a big favour if we do not treat water conservation and management as an avoidable luxury but as an existential necessity. There was a sound reason why the rulers of yore created temple tanks, bunds, reservoirs and numerous other water bodies. All these structures enabled the harvesting of rainwater. Now, we have built over them. India has to conserve water more than ever since brief but massive rain deluges do not allow the soil to retain water. Worse, the water runs off too quickly, taking the top and fertile soil with it. Therefore, capturing it is more important than before.
Barely a month before the IMD released its monsoon update, three experts published their book on water. They were not shy of sounding dire. Parameswaran Iyer, Arunabha Ghosh and Richard Damania, in their book Water, Nature and Progress: Solutions for a New India, call for a circular water-economy mission that treats used water as a resource rather than a liability, with realistic targets and financing models. India reuses only 3 per cent of its treated used water, while cities like Singapore meet 40 per cent of their water demand through reuse. The mission proposes staggered targets — 50 per cent treatment capacity by 2028, 100 per cent by 2035, 50 per cent reuse by 2035 — along with a framework for public-private partnerships that draws on successful models from Surat, Thane, Taiwan and Jordan.
One of the pillars on which India’s aspiration of becoming a developed society and economy rests is water. If that pillar is corroded by pollution and the under-appreciation of its role in sustaining civilisations, the edifice will struggle to rise and remain vulnerable to collapse.
Water is a scarce commodity that will become increasingly so, and its price must reflect that. Right now, that scarcity value is captured by unregulated water tankers. That shows that people are willing to pay a price for water, but they resist paying a water tax to the state because they are not sure of service quality. So, the ability to charge a water tariff follows, rather than precedes, improvements in state capacity and service delivery. But governments across the country cannot provide an assured, reliable water supply, nor can they build the infrastructure to do so without the financial capacity to fund it. Therefore, an honest conversation between the governing and the governed on water pricing and service commitments is overdue.
India is not the only water-stressed society, but, as with every other problem — employment or energy transition, to name just two — the challenge is greater and more urgent for India given its sheer size. Its reactive approach to insidious challenges such as water stress may be both inadequate and too late. This year’s likely below-normal monsoon has served us one more warning. We will be helping ourselves if we pay heed to it.
V Anantha Nageswaran and M Ravichandran are, respectively, the Chief Economic Advisor and Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India. Views are personal
It will be good to treat this year’s ENSO effect as yet another warning sign for the country to get its act together on water. 
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