The speck on the map of Jharkhand turns alive at Nagri. Low clouds, forest and neon green fields. Sodden land and women in colourful saris who are busy removing weeds to ensure a bumper crop of paddy. They sing, ?Oh Heaven open with gusto; Oh Rain God, bring plenty of rain.? The positive spin is that the past fortnight has witnessed continuous rain, bringing smiles on faces of the farmers who were dejected due to the scanty rainfall during June-July. This is the period when this village received 300 mm of rain on an average every year kick starting sowing and transplanting paddy. This year the scene was different.
Nagri gathered less than 120 mm of rain fall, a feature common to all 32,000 odd villages in Jharkhand. Weather forecasters reported that cyclone Aila had adversely affected the monsoon leaving this state with a possibility to get 500 mm of rain during June-September against an annual average of 1,450 mm.
The dry spell has left the farmers in despair. And the state government took a series of initiatives. Unlike the past, when the drought was declared on the extent of damage caused to the crop in the post monsoon season, this time the state government declared the entire state as drought-hit in the midst of the monsoon due to scanty rainfall.
K Sankarnarayananan, Governor, Jharkhand on August 15 said, ?The current drought situation in the state is a major cause of concern. It has damaged the agriculture scenario badly affecting both the farmers and production of different crops.? Soon a number of measures were introduced to provide relief to the affected people. These include a Rs 350 crore special relief package from the Centre and 35 kgs of wheat and rice being distributed free of cost among 23.54 lakh people of the total 29.50 lakh people below the poverty line in the state.
Now with the state gaining more than 475.2 mm of rainfall during June 1-August 25 against the normal of 763.8, the deficit is just about 38% from normal. On August 15, the deficiency was expected to be over 50%. This has ensured that farmers are not going to face the water crisis they were confronting in the midst of poor monsoon.
?The late rains have generated hope that the total rainfall at the end of the season may not be less than 75% of the annual average,? says GKMohanty, Director, meteorological centre in Ranchi. Back at Nagri, Jeetan Manjhi, who had left his four acres of land untilled migrated to Ranchi to pull rickshaw last month, has returned home to till it and sow the paddy seeds. His neighbour Madhuri was busy removing weeds to ensure the paddy saplings she had planted in five acres of land.
The survival and growth of these saplings, each nearly two feet from the surface, are dependent on the rains in the coming month. ?The rains this week have brightened the prospect of paddy crop. If it continued to pour in the coming months, we will not starve,? she smiles. Mohanty says, ?Indications are that the low pressure in the Bay of Bengal will continue to bring rain in most parts in the next few days. ?
Secretary of Agriculture, AP Singh admits the late rains had brought major relief. ?In all the sowing has taken place in 60-70% of a target of 16,92,000 hectares. The other Kharif crops like maize, pulses and oil seeds have improved from 50-60%.? While the worst is over, the message emanating from the late rains dissolving the drought into a prospect of normal paddy crops is that irrigation was a major problem in this state where less than 10% of the total cultivable land was covered under irrigation.
The rest 90% of the cultivable land was dependent on vagaries of the monsoon.
Dr Shivendra Kumar, ICAR run HARP?s Principal Scientist says, ?The need of the hour is to lessen dependency on the rain by expanding the area under irrigation. This can be done provided the government accords priority to minor irrigation as well as water shed management.?