India staring at drought (Hindustan Times 25 July 2012)

The government has rolled out the first steps to avert a farm sector crisis amid indications that the Met department is now set to switch to a below-normal rainfall forecast. The rainfall outlook is expected to be revised from 96% to 92% when a “mid-season review” is presented to the government next week

The rains — 22% deficient so far — were previously predicted to be normal. Rainfall between 96-104% of 89 cm — a 50-year average — is considered normal.
The GoM on drought has not convened, as farm minister Sharad Pawar and the Congress are yet to resolve a political deadlock.
The GoM on drought has not convened, as farm minister Sharad Pawar and the Congress are yet to resolve a political deadlock. This has prompted the PMO to step in to protect farmers.
The steps include setting aside 900MW of power for ramping up sowing operations in the grain-basket states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh and enhancing diesel supply since farmers will rely on generators to pump groundwater into their fields.
What's more, the government is likely to announce a subsidy on lentils to make them cheaper.
"Declaring a drought — if at all — depends on the extent to which farms are affected," Sailesh Nayak, the earth sciences secretary, told HT. According to meteorological classification, a more than 10% rain deficit in nearly 20-30% of the country qualifies as drought.
The rains, which act as strong check on inflation, are vital for not only the agriculture sector, but also the broader economy. A patchy monsoon could crimp food output and hit farm income, which supports a third of Indians.
Rural spending on most items — from television sets to gold —  goes up when adequate rains raise farm output. This aids economic growth.
Rising prices of wheat and pulses - 6% and 20% from a year ago in June - prompted the KV Thomas-led ministry of consumer affairs to ask the Forwards Markets Commission, the commodity futures regulator, to launch anti-speculation steps.

Terminal damage (Hindustan Times 24 July 2012)

In June 1992, Manmohan Singh, then finance minister in the Government of India, delivered the Foundation Day Address of the Society for Promotion of Wastelands Development (SPWD). He spoke on the topic ‘Environment and the New Economic Policies’. In his talk, Singh urged “objective standards certify compliance with these standards, institution of an effective system of verification and industry audit and heavy penalties for non-compliance with approved environmental standards and norms” certify compliance with these standards, institution of an effective system of verification and industry audit and heavy penalties for non-compliance with approved environmental standards and norms”

Back in 1992, Singh expressed the hope that the new economic policies, by ending bureaucratic regulation of economic activities, would “set free a substantial amount of scarce administrative resources which can then be deployed in nation-building activities like rural development, education, health and environmental protection”. The finance minister ended his lecture by saying that, “I for one am convinced that the new economic policies introduced since July 1991 will provide a powerful stimulus to an accelerated drive both for poverty reduction and the protection of our environment.”

There is a vigorous debate on the impact of economic liberalisation on poverty reduction. I am not qualified to intervene in this debate, but as a long-time student of environmental issues, I can confidently state that in this latter respect Singh’s hope has been falsified. The past two decades have seen a systematic assault on our lands, forests, rivers, and atmosphere, whereby new industries, mines, and townships have been granted clearances without any thought for our long-term future as a country and a civilisation.

In the 1980s — the decade before Singh addressed the SPWD — the environmental movement had forced the government to introduce a series of important ameliorative measures. Pressures from popular agitations such as the Chipko Andolan had made the nation’s forest policies more sensitive to local communities and to ecological diversity. A movement led by a professor-priest in Banaras had committed the government to a Ganga Action Plan, which aimed to clean the polluted holy river as a prelude to the restoration of other rivers and water-bodies. The scientific and social critiques of large hydel projects had compelled a closer look at decentralised and non-destructive alternatives for water conservation and irrigation.

When speaking of environmental issues, it is important to recognise that in a densely populated country like India, these have both an ecological as well as human dimension. Programmes to clear-cut natural forests and replace them with exotic species deplete the soil even as they deprive peasants of access to fuel, fodder and artisanal raw material. Mining projects, if not properly regulated or carried out with state-of-the-art technologies, ravage hillsides and pollute rivers used by villagers downstream.  In this sense, in India, environmental protection or conservation is not a luxury — as it might be in rich, under-populated countries — but the very basis of human (and national) survival.

This was the key insight of the Indian environmental movement of the 1970s and 1980s, which informed both scientific research as well as public policy. After economic liberalisation, however, environmental safeguards have been systematically dismantled. The ministry of environment and forests has cleared destructive projects with abandon. Penalties on errant industries are virtually never enforced. Although by law every new project has to have an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), these, as the then environment minister Jairam Ramesh candidly admitted in March 2011, are a “bit of a joke”, since “under the system we have today, the person who is putting up the project prepares the report”.

As a consequence, the natural environment has steadily deteriorated over the past 20 years. Levels of air pollution in our cities have increased. More rivers are dead or dying owing to the influx of untreated waste. Our forests remain under threat. The chemical contamination of the soil continues unabated.

This undermining of India’s natural life-support systems is ignored, indeed at times encouraged, by state and central governments of all ideologies and parties. Consider the official hostility to the comprehensive, fact-filled and carefully written report on the Western Ghats prepared by a team of experts led by the world-famous ecologist Madhav Gadgil. The Ghats are a natural treasure more precious even than the Himalaya. Their forests, waters, and soils nourish the livelihoods of several hundred million Indians. The Gadgil report urges a judicious balance of development and conservation, whereby local communities as well as scientific experts are consulted on mining, tourism, and energy generation projects. The report is in the spirit of the democracy and social equality professed by the Constitution. However, its recommendations do not sit easily with those who would auction our natural resources to the highest bidder or the bidder with the most helpful political connections. Chief ministers of states have condemned the report without reading it. The Union minister of the environment has refused to meet the distinguished authors of a report her own ministry commissioned. Meanwhile, Gadgil and his equally esteemed colleague, MS Swaminathan, have been dropped from the National Advisory Council. This has further impoverished that body, since Professors Gadgil and Swaminathan are not ‘jholawalas’ but top-class scientists, advocating policies based not on ideology but on logical reasoning and empirical evidence. Singh’s prediction of 1992 — that the environmental situation would improve after liberalisation — has unfortunately not come to pass. Natural systems have continued to decline, while social conflicts have increased, as developers unchecked by the State or the law aggressively displace local farmers, herders, and fisherfolk. Let me end with a prediction of my own. If the Gadgil report is junked, the Western Ghats will, in the years to come, witness its own Singurs, Nandigrams, Niyamgiris, and Dantewadas.

Ramachandra Guha is the current holder of the Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs, London School of Economics. The views expressed by the author are personal.

Why build so many ghost cities (Hindustan Times 23 July 2012)

It was a long time coming. Last week, the Punjab and Haryana High court barred the government from issuing fresh licences for construction in Gurgaon unless a developer gave an undertaking that no groundwater would be used for building purpose. Originally a village, Gurgaon grew from a municipal town to a district headquarter to what is now a "Millennium City". The new Gurgaon rose from the fields in 1981 when the first construction licence was awarded to DLF Universal Limited, a private firm, for building DLF Qutub Enclave, now known as DLF City, the plushest neighbourhood in the area.

Following this, 400 construction licences were granted to develop 8,000 hectares of land, including the 800 high-rises and plotted bungalows. Consequently, Gurgaon saw a population boom. Nearly 6,50,000 of the city’s 1.5 million people were added during the last decade.

All this has come at a cost. Five years back, Gurgaon was declared a “dark zone” by the Central Groundwater Authority (CGWA) and digging of borewells was banned. Today, Gurgaon is extracting three times of what is naturally replenished. The CGWA warned in 2007 that if this rampant extraction was not stopped, Gurgaon would have no groundwater left by 2017.

According to petitioners who took the matter to high court, the city's daily water demand is 200 million gallons per day (MGD). While 50 MGD comes from the civic supply, the remaining 150 MGD is extracted from the ground through borewells. According to one estimate, there are at least 30,000 borewells in the district. The builders alone illegally extract 50 MGD for construction. And now they are eyeing Noida for water.

But Noida, another suburban town of Delhi, is already going the Gurgaon way with its groundwater table depleting by 66 cm every year. In Greater Noida, the rate of depletion is 27 cm a year. In 2004, the water table of the district was in the safe category.

In 2009, it slipped into semi-critical zone. If extraction continues at the current pace, the water level will reach the critical zone in the next four years.

Local environmentalists allege that property developers in Noida and Greater Noida have been “de-watering” the ground by pumping out groundwater to dry building foundations. In the process, precious groundwater is being dumped into Shahdara drain and other sewer lines. Worried that their city may soon become another Gurgaon, Noida’s farmers’ association has sought the Union water resource ministry’s intervention.

Rainwater harvesting is mandatory in Gurgaon to get a completion certificate to any property built on a plot of 250 square yards and above. But no survey has ever been done to check if these harvesting systems actually work. The Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon, which had got 270 rainwater harvesting structures designed by experts from Jamia Millia Islamia, has put only 50 to use.

Much of rainwater never reaches aquifers because of underground parking lots in the high-rises. In Ghaziabad, in the absence of any solid waste disposal plant, most storm water drains serve as pits for the 750 metric tonnes of domestic garbage the city generates every day. The Haryana government is yet to cover the present residents of Gurgaon in the master sewerage and drainage network.

Yet, it is developing another 22,000 hectares, mostly through private builders, projecting a 160% rise in population by 2025.

With half of the world already living in cities, there is no alternative to urbanisation. But if we continue to pursue what is effectively a scorched earth strategy to maximise growth with no regards for our own future, we may well be laying the foundations of necropolises.

Demolish Yamuna bus depot: Urban arts panel (Hindustan Times 20 July 2012)

Environmentalists campaigning against a permanent Delhi Transport Corporation millennium bus depot on the banks of the Yamuna got a shot in the arm with the Delhi Urban Arts Commission also saying the construction had no environmental clearance and needed to be demolished.

“Zonal ‘O’ does not permit any such facility in the area. Since it was built as a temporary facility for  CWG (the Commonwealth Games), the Yamuna bed should be restored to its original form. Existing structures and hard-top road surfaces should be demolished immediately. All ongoing construction and use must be stopped,” said a DUAC affidavit filed in the court hearing a public interest litigation on the issue.

‘O’ does not permit any such facility in the area. Since it was built as a temporary facility for  CWG (the Commonwealth Games), the Yamuna bed should be restored to its original form. Existing structures and hard-top road surfaces should be demolished immediately. All ongoing construction and use must be stopped,” said a DUAC affidavit filed in the court hearing a public interest litigation on the issue.

Environmentalists Manoj Mishra and Vinod Jain in their PIL demanded demolition of the depot on the grounds that the construction was against the master plan and zonal plan of the river. “Such concretisation (sic) will badly affect the water recharge capacity of the area and will prove harmful for the river,” they contended.
Questioning the move to make the depot permanent by changing the land use in the master plan from “recreational” to “transport”, the court had slammed the government saying “you cannot make changes in the master plan after carrying out an illegal construction”.

A tale of two rivers: Only one happy ending (Times of India 08 July 2012)

NEW DELHI: Delhi and Singapore have very little in common geographically. The only thing linking the two was their dependence on rivers running through their midst. Yamuna turned into a sewage carrying channel and continues to be one. Singapore's river was probably in a worse state till the 1970s. And that is where the similarity ends.
In a period of 10 years and at a cost of about Singapore $300 million, the city managed to clean up the river completely and turn it into a matter of pride. The water is sparkling clean and devoid of any stench. Where no fish existed earlier, over 200 aquatic species have been documented now. It has become the heart of the city's recreational pursuits while the land along the river has been put to commercial and residential use.
The river had been at the heart of Singapore's trade and commerce, providing an important transportation channel to and from the city, since the city was founded in 1819. "The main sources of water pollution in the river were squatter colonies, backyard industries, street hawkers and vegetable wholesalers, and pig and duck farms...waste water was discharged directly into the river...By 1977, the water in the Singapore river was black, foul smelling and devoid of aquatic life. The river was dead," says a report by the Asia-Pacific Forum for Environment and Development (APFED).
In 1977, prime minister Lee Kuan Yew had the environment ministry draw up an action plan. This included resettlement of more than 16,000 families living in squatter colonies in public housing estates and relocation of 2,800 polluting industries to industrial estates.
Till here, the story of the Yamuna and the Singapore river follow a similar trajectory. In the past decade or more, Delhi government has drawn up plan after plan to clean the Yamuna. In November 2000, the urban development ministry made a strong case for removal of slums from the river banks as they were a major cause of pollution. By 2004, thousands of families had been 'relocated' to remote corners. That, however, made little difference, and by 2006, the river was even more polluted.
While Singapore's resettlement plans included providing the relocated families with proper sewage networks, Delhi's slum-dwellers found themselves without even the most basic of facilities. "Some 610 pig farms and 500 duck farms were either phased out or relocated to other areas. Polluting industries and trades were also re-sited to other areas with proper pollution control facilities," says the APFED report.
Delhi, meanwhile, failed to take a comprehensive view of the problem. Singapore set itself a deadline of 10 years and met it; Delhi failed completely. "One agency or department should have been made responsible for overseeing the river cleaning work. In Delhi, there is Delhi Jal Board carrying out projects under the Yamuna Action Plan, DDA developing the city without any concern about water and sewage and the municipal corporation dealing with waste management. There is no co-ordination between the agencies. DJB has spent crores of rupees already and is now looking at the interceptor sewage system as a last resort. This too was to have been partially constructed by 2010 but will now not be ready before 2014," said Vinod Jain of NGO Tapas.
In Singapore, the project was launched under the environment ministry while a high-level working committee comprising various government ministries and statutory boards was set up to look into the implementation and monitoring of the various action programmes. The success of the project is also attributed to the involvement of grassroots and civic organizations, business community and NGOs.
Once the sources of pollution were eliminated, the government set down to develop the riverfront. The river was dredged, quay steps along the river waterfront repaired, the walkway along the river tiled and turfed and large-scale plantation carried out. To merge the riverfront with the cityscape, a 3-km stretch along the Kallang basin was given facilities like piers, shelters and benches.
The project to clean the river officially drew to a close in 1987. From then on, the government took up aggressive development of the riverside and conservation of the river. Before the start of the new decade, the riverside started getting dotted by what now defines Singapore's skyline. A central business district with modern skyscrapers, shopping centres, condominiums and hotels lined the waterway. The government also took up conservation of shophouses, buildings and bridges. In 2007, work on the Marina Barrage, a reservoir at the mouth of the river, drew to a close. Constructed at a cost of Singapore $226 million, Singapore's 15th barrage stores water for the city and acts as a flood control measure.
In April 2006, the Public Utilities Board launched the Active, Beautiful, Clean Waters programme. Under this, Singapore's massive network of drains, canals and reservoirs is being converted into clean waterscapes and being integrated with its parks and gardens to create new recreational spaces.