Spectre of drought in Terai region?
signs, clouds of hope and a pregnant pause
Drought is a complex thing—hard to foretell, harder to accept and damn difficult to define.
But after the sure signs in Bundelkhand, the tell-tale indications in Gorakhpur-Basti division’s Terai region leave no room for doubt that the ghost of drought — akin to 2009, 2002 and 1987 — is already upon us.
“Yawning cracks have appeared in the paddy fields which should normally have remained inundated in water. The clouds have been hovering over for almost a month bringing rains in only a few instances. We have exhausted our stock of diesel now for irrigation and if it doesn’t rain handsomely in the next few days, the crop will be ruined,” says Bibhuti Patel, a well-to-do farmer in Maharajganj district.
Patel has been watering his nursery every five days by a diesel pump-set, just to keep the ground wet. He knows that this year is different and the rains will remain deficient. However, he has exhausted his parsimony and patience and sounds utterly despondent.
Unluckily, Patel is not alone in this suspended state of gloom. He shares his anxiety with the farmers of Siddharthanagar, Santkabirnagar, Deoria, Basti and Gorakhpur.
The drying reservoirs, the lessthan-average rainfall, the costly diesel and the errant electricity needed to draw water out of government and private tube-wells, are the usual culprits that make irrigation difficult for the waterintensive kharif crops like paddy.
The deputy director of agriculture in Patel’s district, Awinash Chandra Tripathi, however, is not worried.
“The crops are getting the water they need, for the time being. It would be a problem if it doesn’t rain in next 15 days,” says Tripathi undermining the visible evidence of the cracks in the paddy fields.
The district has so far registered sowing (of paddy) in 1.62 lakh hectares. There are 102 canals to irrigate but of these only 90 have water. There are tube wells too but power supply is only for 7 hours and even in these 7 hours, the voltage remains too low to operate the tube wells.
The only option that remains is rains which have remained utterly deficient so far. Between July 1 and 18, the district has received only 68.75 mm of rainfall. Corresponding figures for the last year is 187 mm. Add to this the menace of inflation. Everything from the seeds to fertilizers has become costlier.