12.12 hrs.
Title: Motion for adjournment regarding unprecedented drought situation in the country.
(AMETHI): Sir, I beg to move:
“That the House do now adjourn.”
I thank you on behalf of my Party and my own behalf for giving us this opportunity to raise an issue which has been causing severe and extensive distress to crores of men, women and children in large parts of the country.
I was going through the reply to a Starred Question in the House on Monday and looking at the dimension of the tragedy. Andhra Pradesh: 22 districts Chhattisgarh: all 16 districts Haryana: all 19 districts Himachal Pradesh: all 12 districts Jharkhand: all 22 districts Karnataka: 24 districts Madhya Pradesh: 32 districts Maharashtra: 33 out of 35 districts Orissa: 30 districts Punjab: all 17 districts Rajasthan: all 32 districts Tamil Nadu: 19 districts, although the formal declaration has not yet been made. Uttar Pradesh: all 70 districts Uttaranchal: all 13 districts; and West Bengal: 3 districts.The report further adds:
“Besides, Gujarat has recently declared 13 districts as drought affected.”
Yes, Mr. Speaker, Sir, even Gujarat is reeling from drought and the repercussions have been severe because it has come on the back of the terrible and massive earthquake. Yet, the BJP and VHP do not seem to be agitated about the drought and its effect on the people of the State but instead they carry on with their divisive, hate-filled propaganda.
It seems that this is clearly one of the worst and most widespread drought that we have had in a long time. Substantial portions of the Kharif crop have been lost and according to the Government’s own advance estimate, the shortfall of Kharif foodgrain production this year may actually well be closed to 19 per cent. Sowing has been far less than normal. Even in the areas where there has been sowing, the crop has withered.
Mr. Speaker, Sir, a signal of the impending drought was visible many months ago to all of us and surely to the Government also. A weak monsoon was forecast. There were reports on television; there were reports in the newspapers. Its impact could definitely have been anticipated. Even after the Kharif crop was lost there was time to take action to protect at least the Rabi crop, but this too was not done.
I have seen the drought-induced misery in various parts of our country as many of you who come from those areas have undoubtedly also seen. I do not wish to make this a political issue since the lives of so many kisans and khet mazdoors are involved. But I am compelled to say that the Central Government has not treated or tackled this national calamity with the sense of urgency required as was done, for instance, during the drought of 1987-88. I regret to say that the Central Government has responded in a most lethargic and insensitive manner and has not taken serious notice of the gravity of the situation that prevails in so many States.
I have held a number of meetings with the Chief Ministers of Congress-governed States. We have collectively met and together we drew up certain suggestions and action points. We then, all together, called on the hon. Prime Minister and that was on August 05. At that point we had made certain suggestions which I would like to quickly list out.
One suggestion was that an all Party Committee be set up to galvanise the implementation of the relief package. This has not been done. We had also suggested a special meeting of the NDC to be convened to discuss the drought situation and short and long term plans to deal with such an emergency. We requested for immediate despatch of Assessment Teams from the Central Government to the affected areas. This was done but after quite a bit of delay. I had suggested that the corpus of the National Calamity Relief Fund be raised to at least Rs. 10,000 crore. At that time we were told that the National Calamity Relief Fund has no monetary limit. And yet most of the States have received a tiny fraction of the relief assistance which they had asked the Centre for. I had also asked for the waiver of interest on short and medium term loan extended by co-operatives and commerical banks to the farmers in drought hit areas. Now, the waiver has not been announced but what the Government has done is that it has simply deferred this by a year. Here I would like to ask a question. Is this not adding the burden to the next year? I had also suggested changes to improve the effectiveness of the National Crop Insurance Scheme and also I had asked if the Government could have, for obvious reasons, a system whereby emergency seed production plans could be made to make good the loss in seed production during the Kharif season. Now, this too has not materialised.
There were many other suggestions that came from the Chief Ministers at that very meeting at which I think the hon. Agriculture Minister himself was present. There were many other suggestions from experienced Chief Ministers. The Government has now announced a package of relief measures. It almost seems to me that the same package keeps being announced from time to time perhaps to give an impression that a lot is being done. But, I am afraid I have to say that the truth is quite otherwise. The package is obviously inadequate and it has come too late. We are told that the reports of the Central teams are still being processed for further releases in future.
Mr. Speaker, Sir, we are in November. The kharif crop is already lost. Wheat sowing has started. When is the Government going to act? This is what all of us through you would like to ask the Government and would like to also get a reply. We know that there are a large number of Districts that are chronically drought-prone. So, why did Government not show greater preparedness to meet any contingency, especially in these regions? It seems to us that this attitude is quite incomprehensible. I believe that the time has come for a comprehensive review of all long-running schemes like the Drought-Prone Areas Programme and the Desert Development Programme, so as to make them effective because today they are simply not effective.
Mr. Speaker, Sir, drought management must be a cooperative endeavour. There is no room for confrontation between the Centre and the States here. We all must recognise the severe fiscal problems that are faced by all State Governments. Many States are actually taking measures both to raise revenues and to manage their expenditures well. Therefore, the Centre must help these States. It must be more flexible in the implementation of relief and rehabilitation programmes without unnecessarily adding to the fiscal burden of the States.
Mr. Speaker, Sir, there was a time when our country had a famine code. Now we have successfully abolished mass famine. That was a huge, tremendous hurdle and we were able to successfully cross that hurdle – I would say here – greatly thanks to the leadership of Mrs. Indira Gandhi. I believe we all know that not more than 40 per cent of the cultivated area in our country is irrigated. Even if all of the country’s irrigation potential is harnessed, 40 per cent of the cultivated areas would still be rain-fed. Thus, vulnerability to the vagaries of the monsoon simply cannot be avoided.
I would suggest, therefore, that the time is ripe for the country to think of a drought management code in the form of appropriate legislation that would codify a detailed action plan, which would automatically come into force when the rains fail. This code should also cover relief measures, food and drinking water supply, alternative cropping systems, grain, seed and water banks in villages. There should be special focus on the really vulnerable sections of our society who inevitably face acute distress during times of drought and who inevitably and always suffer the most, and these are the dalits, the tribals and landless labourers, women-headed households, the old, the aged, the destitutes, infirm, pregnant and nursing mothers, and all those who cannot avail of the Food for Work Programmes.
Mr. Speaker, Sir, I would like to make yet another suggestion which would definitely strengthen our drought management effort. The system for allocating resources in times of calamities like drought, must not only be fair and equitable to all affected States, but also must be seen to be fair, equitable and transparent.
Here again, there seems to be a standard refrain of the Centre when allocating foodgrains to the States. The standard refrain is that the States are not lifting the grains. Now, the Government, of course, has all the figures; and I too have checked them with some of the Chief Ministers who are in charge of the Congress-ruled States. I must say that the picture that emerges from the reports that they have given is a quite different one.
I would just like to quote a few cases. For instance, Madhya Pradesh was allotted one lakh metric tonnes of grains as drought relief in the current financial year. This was to be lifted by 30th November. The State has already lifted 75 per cent of this and the rest will be lifted by the 21st November. They have also asked for another five lakh metric tonnes, but that has not been given so far.
Chhattisgarh was allotted only 50,000 metric tonnes for drought relief this year and this allotment was made on the last day of September. By October end, the State had lifted the entire quantity. They have also utilised the entire quantity; and they have again asked for another five lakh metric tonnes, which is still to be cleared.
Karnataka asked for six lakh metric tonnes. They were allotted only two lakh metric tonnes. They have lifted 1.65 lakh metric tonnes. They have not been able to lift the rest because of movement problems of the FCI. The State has been requesting to have this sorted out. In the meantime, they have asked for another two lakh tonnes immediately, but as of now, this is still to come.
In the case of Rajasthan, it is really, I would say, the State which is the most distressed at the moment because of more than four years of consecutive drought conditions; and it had asked for 56 lakh metric tonnes, against which it has been given only 2 lakh metric tonnes. The State has lifted the entire quantity and has been desperately asking for more. I am told that only yesterday, a further allocation has been made and that too, of only five lakh metric tonnes.
So, Mr. Speaker, Sir, does this not show that the Centre is trying to pass the buck, rather than acknowledging its own shortcomings and adopting a more serious attitude towards these major calamities?
What we need is objective criteria to determine the nature and quantum of Central assistance. It is actually no use for the Centre to shift the responsibility to the States, as it has repeatedly done on so many occasions. After all, there are limits to what the States can do on their own, without adequate support from the Central Government under such circumstances.
Sir, here, I am not speaking only of Congress-ruled States; I am speaking of all the States that have been so badly impacted, irrespective of the party in power.
Sir, today this country is facing the dichotomy of overflowing godowns and empty stomachs. Starvation deaths, at any time, are a blot on our society and more so when we have such huge levels of foodgrain stocks. Today, our stocks for foodgrains are four times more than the 16.8 million tonnes required for ensuring food security. For over a year, my Party colleagues and myself have been requesting the Prime Minister to start large scale food-for-work and food-for-nutrition programmes across the country, particularly, in those traditionally vulnerable regions. We have also been asking for an increase in the coverage and allocation under the Antyodaya Programme. Yet, very little has been done and the Centre has not yet addressed the very genuine demand of the States regarding transportation costs of the foodgrains that are allotted to them.
Mr. Speaker, Sir, this Government has been particularly privileged in presiding over the largest foodgrain stocks in the history of our nation. Here again, I would like to recall Shrimati Gandhi’s name because it was under her leadership that this was made possible. Yet, the Government has failed miserably in providing basic and essential food security, when and where it is most needed. It has failed to use the surplus to alleviate endemic malnutrition. The real underlying tragedy of endemic malnutrition is often overlooked. I am sure, all of us understand that it is only to be expected that the nutrition situation deteriorates further during acute drought years. Ironically, for two years prior to the drought, the opportunity offered by the surplus food stock to prevent acute distress among poor people was simply frittered away. While the Central food stocks were steadily rising, the off take of foodgrains under the Public Distribution System was declining. Why did this happen? This is again a question we would like the Government to answer. This happened due to the Government’s own distorted policy which reduced the PDS offtake at a time when they should have actually been increasing.
Well this is not an occasion to score debating points. There have been some unfortunate attempts to reap political capital out of the recent tragic deaths in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh without going objectively into the facts. It is most unfortunate, of course, that these deaths have occurred. On my request, the Chief Minister of Rajasthan had instituted a high level inquiry to see if any administrative lapses occurred in the Baran District. I have seen the inquiry report. It acknowledges the unprecedented famine in the entire district and it also acknowledges the fact that since failure of the monsoon is not very common in the Baran District, people there are less equipped to handle the distress. The report clearly establishes, however, that the immedaite cause of deaths in both those villages was specific illnesses. The Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh has given a detailed report about the deaths in Shivpuri District. According to the report, most of the affected families are owners of land. Most of them had stocks of foodgrains in their homes at the time the deaths occurred in the family.
Therefore, I believe we need to carefully analyse the cause of such deaths and learn from experience rather than make accusations at a time when the drought is already causing sufficient distress.
I do hope that we will mount a collective response to mitigate the impact of drought in the years to come. I believe that we have the knowledge, we have the technology, we have the skills and we have the resources. What we need desperately is the will and the commitment. This is an issue on which there can be no division in this House and I am sure that there is no division in this House. I trust that all Members from all sections of the House will be united on the need for vigorous and timely action.