At one level, there is the obvious effect of rainfall failure, at another level, there is political jockeying. As P Sainath said, everyone loves a drought. The effects of the kind of weather we have had are severe, but on some people and in some areas. Remediation has to be focused, which becomes more difficult if the drought refrain is everywhere. The second broad point is this: I am an admirer of statisticians and meteorologists, but I must say, the metwallahs, perhaps under pressure from bureaucrats and politicians, havn?t exactly covered themselves with glory in saying that their average normal forecast may still turn out right. When more than two out of five agro-met regions have done badly and the kharif crop is definitely damaged, this kind of statement is hardly helpful.
The most optimistic bet now is that kharif will show a small decline in output. Kharif output in recent times has exceeded rabi. Anyway, lower retained moisture and reservoir levels will affect the rabi crop. However, if winter rains are good there is still a possibility that agriculture will not show a decline for the year as a whole. Agricultural growth rate last year, as anticipated in this column, was mildly negative. Of course, lower GDP growth, as we had argued, was on account of export and FDI deceleration. Agriculture no longer determines macro outcomes. In the past thirty five years we have had only three years of negative aggregative growth but many years of poor rainfall and crop failure.
But there will be many pockets of misery given the kind of rainfall failure we have had. The pattern of misery documented by Narpat Jodha for very arid regions still holds for rainfed regions in Central and Eastern India. In these areas, rains have been poor. In the rain shadow regions and upland areas, if rainfall is of the kind seen so far this year, the choice for many vulnerable agricultural and rural households will be how many animals will be allowed to die. This is still the reality of the adivasi economy. Drinking water sources will be under pressure and there will be more hunger in these regions. Unemployment and the search for work should be less traumatic with NREGA but will still be a problem.
From all accounts, not more than 15 agroclimatic-met regions will be under this kind of pressure. A lot can be done by focusing on them. Advance planning can mean that the macro effect of the relief programmes?essentially releasing grain?will be anti-inflationary at the margin. This will be all the more so if the relief and employment plans are anticipated with existing outlays. A drought is the time to accelerate water conservation, development and delivery programmes. Watershed projects, deepening water bodies, declogging existing canals and repairing wells are all sensible and doable.
Also this is a year to emphasise the value and price of water. Not all projects give benefits in the period of the poor weather cycle, but popular participation will be more and the programmes more effective, if planned well. The priority to drinking water is highlighted in all water policy documents but violated in practice since industrialists and big towns are more influential. This has to be enforced by the State this year.
Mihir Shah is the planning chief for such programmes and has considerable experience in all this and this is the time to make him park himself in the field and provide the much needed coordination and planning focus at the local level. Turn adversity to advantage. Sudhir Kumar, one of our senior civil servants, wrote a piece on the synergy of a collector and a planning commission member working together when he was a young collector ? in those days called district level chief secretary?in Karnataka. Rajiv Gandhi made me do it thirty years ago as a plan panel member and I see no reason for us not to do it again.
This is also the year to highlight the technology and incentive systems for dryland crops. Oilseeds, pulses and fodder crops need profitability and technological support. Now that RBI has also pointed out that agriculture does not cause inflation but food prices rise as a consequence of bad policies, let us at least take up some model projects and with agricultural research and institutional systems, cooperatives and corporates. Supply planning for food crops is not a major problem for cereals, given the stock position. For other crops, imports will need to be organised within variable tariff bounds so that the rainfed regions don?t lose out on short to medium growth prospects. All this and more are possible. But we need coordination between agriculture, rural development, water development and macro policymakers. But coordinating agencies must pull their weight.
The author is a former Union minister