In the middle of a severe summer, with unrelenting heat and drought in large swathes of central India leading to the loss of more than 100 lives, water resources minister Uma Bharti made the disconcerting statement: "Drought is a phenomenon for which it is pointless to plan in advance." The minister was defending the union government's actions (or lack thereof) for drought relief in an interview to NDTV.
The minister was justifying the use of water trains and tankers to the worst-affected parts of the country. These last resort measures have been pushed into play when India is barely halfway through the hot season and more than a month away from getting the first monsoon showers.
But the minister contradicted herself when she blamed previous Congress-led governments in Maharashtra, saying that their lack of planning has led to the present water crisis. She extolled the virtues of watershed management and rainwater harvesting and said that states cannot deal with drought situations "suddenly".
There has been nothing sudden about this drought. The is India's second consecutive drought year. Many states, including Maharashtra, were declared drought-hit last year when a deficient monsoon followed a sweltering summer. Meterologists watching the slowly fading El Nino and the weather phenomena had forecast heat waves through the summer.
The case of the drought selfie
Meanwhile, Pankaja Munde, Minister for Rural Development, Women and Child Welfare, surveyed parched Latur over the weekend and posted selfies in front of the dry Manjara river bed that is being desilted. Munde was immediately hauled up for being insensitive and making a mockery of the drought by members of the Congress party in Maharashtra and the Shiv Sena. Munde justified the photos saying that while reviewing water conservation work she was happy to see water in a trench on the river bed and so decided to take some selfies as a record of the work being done there.
Munde is not the only minster to court controversy in Marathwada. Last week, Maharashtra's minister for agriculture and for relief and rehabilitation Eknath Khadse took a helicopter to Belkund, a village 40 minutes by road from Latur. The temporary helipad on which he landed was prepared using 10,000 litres of water, said news reports.
In neighbouring Karnataka too, water is being used to smoothen VIP visits to drought-affected districts. Officials sprinkled two tanker loads of water to keep dust down on roads in Bagalkot district while Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was visiting the area on Monday.
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