Rain gods to be kind in poll year

The India Meteorological Department (IMD), in its second-stage forecast on the monsoons, has said that the rains this season would ???most likely??? be normal, in the range of 96-104% of the long-period average (LPA) that is very reassuring, in the face of widespread reports of farm distress. However, there is bound to be spatial and temporal variation nationally, which calls for proactive policy to build resilience.

Besides, the IMD, in forecasting June-September rainfall for the whole country to be 97% of the LPA, mentions an error factor of +/???4%. And further that rainfall during the month of July is likely to be 101% of its LPA, and 94% for August, but with an error factor of +/???9%.

The vagaries, no doubt, add to the magic of the monsoons, but the issue at hand surely is to purposefully eschew runaway consumption subsidies and attendant giveaways in agriculture, and, instead, boost investment in irrigation, including drip-irrigation, shore up water recharge and storage infrastructure, and dutifully provide for their maintenance.

In parallel, there???s the pressing need to stepup solar-powered pumpsets and augment cold-storage capacity. The rains during August are expected to be somewhat less this year, due to the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), a measure of the surface-water temperature difference in the west and east equatorial Indian Ocean, which is a factor known to affect the monsoons. The projections suggest that a weak negative IOD phase is likely in the second half of the rainy season, with higher water temperatures in the eastern Indian Ocean.

But then, we do need to prepare for a new normal characterised by depressed monsoons and weakening rainfall patterns due to global warming and climate change. It is a fact that in the last several years, there???s been wide variance in the precipitation record and overall performance of the monsoons. It is high time for an annual Water Survey, on the pattern of the Economic Survey, say, in October, for a closer look at India???s choppy and policy-challenged water economy.