|
Coping with the cruel summer
Careful planning, adequate budgeting and close cooperation of government
and NGOs will be needed this summer in Barmer and nearby Thar desert areas
of Rajasthan, says Bharat Dogra
April
2003 (IPS) - These days
the only visible activity in Bhilon ka Tala village in arid Rajasthan is the
digging of a small reservoir that the villagers are trying to complete
before June when the monsoons, they hope, will bring some rain. But that
hope is a forlorn one. The last four monsoons have failed Barmer district,
which borders Pakistan, and the work on the reservoir digging is going on at
a half-hearted pace and then only because it is part of a government scheme
to provide employment and grain to the villagers.
In
distant New Delhi, scientists including Rajendra Pachauri, who happens to
head the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have pronounced
that the repeated failure of the monsoons in these parts is due to global
warming.
"Last
year's experience was the worst," recalls Amiya, a middle-aged woman of
this village, her face emaciated and parched. "There was an early
indication of good rains so we used all our resources and even borrowed to
plant the crop. But the rains never came and we now have nothing -- no
grain, no fodder and no seed for the next crop," she says.
Many
families have started migrating to distant places in search of an uncertain
livelihood from hard labor rather than gamble yet again on wayward monsoons.
For those who stayed back, the central government has provided some
employment under the head of 'relief work' visible mostly in the building
the reservoir that looks small and helpless in the middle of a vast, parched
desert. The work is undertaken by rotation so that all the families get a
go. One group is employed for nine days and followed by another group for
the next nine days, until every family gets a share of what seems to be a
desultory enterprise. Theoretically, a nine-day rotation should fetch each
worker 90 kg of grain and about three dollars in cash. But already the
villagers are so weak and malnourished that few reach that target and the
average is something earning is closer to 50 kg of wheat and a dollar after
a nine-day stint.
And now
the central government is thinking in terms of reducing by half the grain
component of the "food-for-work" relief package. Says Shankar
Kumar, an activist of Lok Adhikar Network (LAN) or People's Rights Network,
which works in several of Barmer's drought-affected villages: "Access
to food will be reduced greatly if the central government goes ahead with
its proposal to reduce the grain contribution."
At a
time when the need is clearly to increase relief effort ahead of the
blistering summer months, any move that reduces employment and food-grain
availability can be disastrous. Kumar and other activists wonder why when
the central government's granaries are bursting with a 60 million tonne
stock of surplus grain, a reduction in the quota is even being considered.
The Supreme Court has reprimanded the government time and again for
mismanaging food distribution in the country, but somehow the system
contrives to ensure that marginalised villagers like those in drought-ridden
Barmer district stay deprived. Everybody in Bhilon ka Tila village is sure
that the "food-for-work" programme has been hijacked by a
contractor-politician nexus, but are too scared or too weary to speak out
and anyway there is no one around these parts to even listen.
In
Rajasthan, a state of 57 million people, health surveys have shown that half
of all children below three are undernourished and half of all adult women
suffer form anaemia - though this is not apparent in the capital city of
Jaipur, a major tourist destination that boasts of palaces converted into
luxury hotels.
"The
fodder shortage is an even more serious problem. Our surveys revealed large
scale animal deaths last year and the situation is bound to worsen this is
summer," says Adil Bhai an activist with the Mahila Mandal women's
forum, another voluntary group. The government provides grant for cattle
camps, but at 25 cents a cow there is not much hope for such livestock as
have survived. Sitaram, who is supervising several cattle camps on behalf of
the non-government Society for Upliftment of Rural Economy (SURE) says,
"Quite often the fodder supply by traders is of poor quality and
adulterated with sand."
What is
more, the camps shelter only cows and bullocks. Manas Ranjan, a senior
activist of LAN, says, "There is a clear need to provide additional
fodder for other animals including sheep, goats, camels and donkeys. All
these animals are important for the livelihood of the villagers."
Weakened camels and donkeys are to be seen everywhere foraging in vain for
some stray green fodder in the desert many dropping in their tracks. As for
drinking water, even the human beings do not get enough.
Starting
this March, the number of villages that will need to be supplied water by
the government's motorized tankers will start increasing rapidly. But the
villagers point out the jeeps and tractors generally reach only the main
settlements accessible by road. After that, camel carts are supposed take
over and carry water to the scattered settlements or 'dhanis'. Says Manas
Ranjan, "Past experience has been that only a very small part of water
needs are satisfied by tankers. Now that there is talk of reducing the per
capita norms further the villagers are apprehensive and worry about sheer
survival."
Fodder
and water shortage, even more than food shortage, is likely to cause extreme
distress right up to late June when hopefully, the monsoon rain will, at
least this year, bring relief. "This will be one of the most difficult
of summers in Barmer and other neighboring areas of Thar Desert," says
Magraj Jain, director of SURE. Very careful planning, adequate budgeting and
close cooperation of government and NGOs will be needed to cope with the
coming cruel summer -- and so far this has remained elusive, the villagers
aver.
Courtesy http://www.indiatogether.org
| 
