Open Letter sent by Prof. Madhav Gadgil to Dr. Kasturirangan on the High Level Working Group Report on WGEEP and Western Ghats.
17 May 2013 Dear Dr. Kasturirangan,
JBS Haldane, the celebrated 19h century scientist and humanist who quit England protesting its imperialistic invasion of Suez to become an Indian citizen has said: Reality is not only stranger than we suppose, but stranger than we CAN suppose! I could never have imagined that you would be party to a report such as that of the High Level Working Group on Western Ghats, but, then, reality is indeed stranger than we can suppose!
In our report to the Ministry of Environment & Forests, based on our extensive discussions and field visits, we had advocated agraded approach with a major role for grass-roots level inputs for safeguarding the ecologically sensitive Western Ghats. You have rejected this framework and in its place, you advocate a partitioning amongst roughly one-third of what you term natural landscapes, to be safeguarded by guns and guards, and two-third of so-called cultural landscapes, to be thrown open to development, such as what has spawned the 35,000 crore rupees illegal mining scam of Goa. This amounts to attempts to maintain oases of diversity in a desert of ecological devastation. Ecology teaches us that such fragmentation would lead, sooner, rather than later, to the desert overwhelming the oases. It is vital to think of maintenance of habitat continuity, and of an ecologically and socially friendly matrix to ensure long term conservation of biodiversity rich areas, and this is what we had proposed.
Moreover, freshwater biodiversity is far more threatened than forest biodiversity and lies largely in what you term cultural landscapes. Freshwater biodiversity is also vital to livelihoods and nutrition of large sections of our people. That is why we had provided a detailed case study of Lote Chemical Industry complex in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra, where pollution exceeding all legal limits has devastated fisheries so that 20,000 people have been rendered jobless, while only 11,000 have obtained industrial employment. Yet the Government wants to set up further polluting industries in the same area, and has therefore deliberately suppressed its own Zonal Atlas for Siting of Industries.
Your report shockingly dismisses our constitutionally guaranteed democratic devolution of decision making powers, remarking that local communities can have no role in economic decisions. Not surprisingly, your report completely glosses over the fact reported by us that while the Government takes absolutely no action against illegal pollution of Lote, it had invoked police powers to suppress perfectly legitimate and peaceful protests against pollution on as many as 180 out of 600 days in 2007-09.
India’s cultural landscape harbours many valuable elements of biodiversity. Fully 75% of the population of Lion-tailed Macaque, a monkey species confined to the Western Ghats, thrives in the cultural landscape of tea gardens. I live in the city of Pune and scattered in my locality are a large number of Banyan, Peepal and Gular trees; trees that belong to genus Ficus, celebrated in modern ecology as a keystone resource that sustains a wide variety of other species. Through the night I hear peacocks calling, and when I get up and go to the terrace I see them dancing. It is our people, rooted in India’s strong cultural traditions of respect for nature, who have venerated and protected the sacred groves, the Ficus trees, the monkeys and the peafowl.
Apparently all this is to be snuffed out. It reminds me of Francis Buchanan, an avowed agent of British imperialism, who wrote in 1801 that India’s sacred groves were merely a contrivance to prevent the East India Company from claiming its rightful property.
It would appear that we are now more British than the British and are asserting that a nature friendly approach in the cultural landscape is merely a contrivance to prevent the rich and powerful of the country and of the globalized world from taking over all lands and waters to exploit and pollute as they wish while pursuing lawless, jobless economic growth. It is astonishing that your report strongly endorses such an approach. Reality is indeed stranger than we can suppose!
A fantastic documentary shattering the myths of Large Dams as sources of clean energy, Damocracy takes a documentary to the next level. It talks about two dams, separated by thousands of kilometers, united by people’s struggle against destructive and illegal large dams. It traces the story of the Bel Monte Dam on Xingu River in the Amazon Basin of Brazil and the Ilisu Dam on the Tigris River in Turkey.
It takes us through a maze of lies, government repression, plight of communities, strengths and struggles of local communities against these projects which have gone on for decades. While Bel Monte Dam threatens over indigenous tribes and native fish in Brazil, Ilusu Dam, under construction even without an EIA will submerge 300 archeological sites including eth entire city of Hasankeyf.
Dr. Philip Fearnside talks about the popular jingle of Hydropower being ‘clean, green source of energy’. He says “People have heard this myth so many times, that they believe it, because they’ve never heard anything else.” He talks about the impact of Methane on global warming, which is many times more than carbon di oxide.
The film ends with a diverse group of dam activists from all corners of the world actually dismantling a wall built across the Xingu… working together in the scorching Amazon sun to undo work of machines for months. In the end, the XIngu flows again..though symbolic, it a powerful message.
In the words of one of the elated activists seeing the river flow finally “If a small united group could do this, imagine what a united world can do against monster dams.”
An inspiring fim in many ways. A must watch for sure.
Daya Pawar[1] (Original marathi song Bai me dharan bandhte, majha maran kandte)[2]
The 2012-13 sugarcane crushing season (which goes on for 160 days [3] from roughly 15th October) has recently concluded. It may be instructive to look at the figures of the sugarcane crushed by sugar factories in Solapur, one of the worst drought-hit districts in the state. Presently, Solapur has more than 200 cattle camps, one of the highest in the state, and more than 141 villages which are entirely dependent on tankers for drinking water.
Solapur and Sugarcane: Solapur has the highest number of sugar factories in Maharashtra. During 2012-13 (latest crushing figures as on 11th April 2013), 126.25 Lakh tonnes cane was crushed in Solapur district alone in its 28 sugar factories[4]. The district accounts for the maximum 18.25% of the cane crushed in the state during 2012-13. In 2012-13, a year that was called as a ‘drought year, worse than 1972 drought’, Solapur added 4 new sugar factories to its empire.
River basins of Solapur Normal monsoon (June-Oct) rainfall in Solapur district is 560 mm, in 2012 monsoon the rainfall was 412 mm[5]. Solapur belongs to five different sub basins as described by the Maharashtra Water and Irrigation Commission (MWIC) Report (June 1999). Among these five sub basins, the MWIC report describes 4 sub basins Bhima downstream Ujani (18B), Seena (19A) and Bori Benetura (19B) as highly deficient considering the water availability from all natural sources. Please see Annex1 Table 1 for details. 86.6% of Solapur district, barring parts of Karmala and Malshiras talukas, fall in this highly deficient river basins. The Commission says: “It is desirable to impose a total ban on water intensive crops like sugarcane in these deficit sub basins”. In these sub basins, “less water intensive crops only” and “less water intensive economic activities only” should be permitted, says the commission (p 138, Vol. III). Please see Annex 1 Table 2 for sub basin wise area of Solapur District.
It means that sugarcane crop and sugar factories in all talukas of Solapur district, possibly except those in Karmala and Malshiras are unviable, in violation of the MWIC report and against prudent water management. There is some addition to the water available in these basins (18B, 19A and 19B) following implementation of Ujani dam and inter-basin transfers. However, that still does not justify any crops like sugarcane or setting up of sugar factories. MWIC clears states that additional water should be spread across the talukas to benefit maximum farmers. Sugarcane cultivation clearly will not help that cause.
Rise of sugarcane cultivation in Solapur“Sugarcane is a crop which exhausts the soil and, therefore, it is not grown in the same field from year to year but is rotated in alternate years with food-crops.”
How rapidly the area under sugarcane in Solapur district has gone up can be seen from the graph (figures from official sources like http://mahaagri.gov.in and Sugar Commissionarate in Pune, 1961-62 and 1971-72 figures is from the Solapur district gazetteer and for 1992-93 from MWIC report). It is clear from the graph that the sugarcane area approximately doubled in Solapur during seventies and again during the eighties. Between 2005-06 and 2011-12, it seems to have gone up by over 160%, this is the highest growth phase for sugarcane cultivation in Solapur. That growth phase is likely to continue if we go by the number of new sugar factories that are planned to be set up in Solapur.
The area under sugarcane in Solapur at its high in recent years was 1.79 lakh ha in 2011-12, which is 19.46 % of net sown area of 9.2 lakh ha in the district (see table 3 in Annex). Of the net irrigated area of 2.52 ha in Solapur, sugarcane takes away 71.03%, way above the prudent 5% prescribed in Maharashtra. It is clear that sugarcane has been taking away disproportionate share of water of the district, at the cost of the rest of the farmers.
Water Consumption of Sugarcane and Sugar factories Considering productivity of 81 tonnes of sugarcane per hectare[7], the cane crushed during 2012-13 occupied 155 864 hectares in Solapur. Considering that ratoon type of sugarcane requires 168.75 lakh litres water per hectare at farm[8], which is the lowest water requirement among all types, (40% of sugarcane in Maharashtra is under ratoon type cultivation), amount of water required for cultivating sugarcane on 155 864 hectares of area in Solapur works out to be 2630 Million Cubic Meters. This is 1.73 times the live storage capacity of Ujani Dam (Live Storage: 1517 MCM), the largest reservoir in Bhima basin and third largest reservoir of Maharashtra. Assuming a rather high irrigation efficiency of 60% (considering that most of the water comes from surface water sources) water required from source would be 4383 MCM[9]
For crushing 126.25 lakh tonnes of cane, the sugar factories used a minimum of 18.93 Million Cubic Meters of water between October 2012 and March 2013, when drought was already severe. The live water storage of Ujani reservoir, at its highest was in October 2012 at 14% and it rapidly receded to zero in January and sub-zero levels from January to March[10] (as on 21st April, 2013, it is -32.91%).This is a very conservative estimate as per guidelines of Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), considering 1500 litres water required to crush and process one tonne of cane[11].
According to MWIC report, even with maximum possible augmentation (from all planned schemes, many of which are not even implemented or sanctioned), Solapur district’s total share of water is 4188 MCM. But the current level of sugarcane cultivation in Solapur already seems to be using more water than the ultimate planned water allocation for Solapur.
New Sugar factories planned in Solapur!To add to this, at least 19 new sugar factories (see details in Table 4) are planned in Solapur[12]. Many of these are private sugar factories and are owned by politicians. Sakhar Diary 2013 gives the locations and capacities of these factories. Some of these factories have also received distance certificates[13] from the Sugar Commissioner’s office, Maharashtra indicating that they are at an advanced clearance stage at the state level. Together, these new factories will add crushing capacity of 85.52 Lakh tonnes of sugarcane. Madha, part of the constituency of Union Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, is in the forefront of getting new sugar factories.It has 3 existing factories and has 5 new ones planned, 2 by politicians.
To grow this 85.52 L T sugarcane, an additional 105 580 hectares will have to be brought under sugarcane cultivation. Additional 1782 MCM of water will be required at farm to cultivate this sugarcane. Assuming even a high irrigation efficiency of 60%, this would mean requirement of 2970 MCM water at source. In addition, the Sugar factories will require 12.83 MCM of water for crushing this cane.
The new planned sugar factories will bring total area under sugarcane in Solapur to 2.685 lakh ha and the annual water consumption by sugarcane and sugar mills over 7400 MCM. This is way above the full planned allocation of water for Solapur as per the MWIC report. MWIC assessment is exhaustive including all possible planned water schemes, so there is no possibility for Solapur to get water over and above the ultimate planned schemes in Solapur. This means that by going for these new sugar factories, Solapur would possibly taking water of other regions or accelerating towards rapid exhaustion of its available groundwater.
Even as farmers from Mohol region sat on dharna in Mumbai, urging Maharashtra government to release water for Ujani dam, the same Mohol block in Solapur district has 3 existing sugar factories. These factories crushed 13.56 lakh tonnes of sugarcane this year till March 2013[14], using 20,340 Lakh Litres of water from 15 October 2012, when the drought was already severe till March 13, when farmers from Mohol were protesting in Mumbai for drinking water. So even when farmers were protesting for drinking water, all the factories continued crushing in Mohol and the district administration, sugar Commissionerate as well as the state administration did not do anything to curb fresh sugarcane cultivation.
In addition, Mohol also has one more sugar factory planned[15] by a politician, with a capacity of crushing 6,40,000 tonnes of sugarcane, which will additionally require 133 MCM water at farm and 222 MCM water at source to cultivate this sugarcane and 9,600 lakh litres of water to crush this sugarcane.
Other drought affected districts Similar situation prevails in Osmanabad, Beed, Jalna, Parbhani in Marathwada which are reeling under severe drought and where drinking water itself has becomes scarce. Osmanabad crushed 26.35 LT of sugarcane through its 9 sugar factories[16]. Significantly, here the district Collector had written a letter in November 2012 to the Sugar Commissionerate to suspend cane crushing in Osmanabad in face of drought[17]. Nothing was done about that recommendation. To top this, 10 more factories are planned in Osmanabad. In the case of Beed, in addition to the existing 8 factories, 14 are in pipeline, Ahmednagar has 20 with 8 in pipeline, Latur has 12 existing and 5 in pipeline and Satara has 11 existing and 14 in pipeline.[18] Looking at the impact of existing sugar cultivation and factories on the water supplies in drought affected regions, the impact of these additional factories is difficult to imagine. The impact of water use and pollution caused by sugar factories and distilleries manufacturing alcohol will be additional.
Absence of credible sanctioning process for new capacities How did these factories get permissions from the Sugar Commissionerate which is the nodal sanctioning authority for sugar factories in Maharashtra? What role did the district administration play? What role do the Agriculture Department as well as the Water Resources Department play in this sanctioning process? What role do the farmers and people have in this sanctioning process? Who decides these are sustainable, just decisions? These are not just rhetorical questions. If prudent answers to these questions not found, Maharashtra water crisis may only get worse in days to come.
Enslaved to sugarcane With a growth cycle of 11-17 months, sugarcane cultivation locks up the farmers, the state and the system in a vicious cycle of irrigation at any cost. On an average, sugarcane requires irrigation twice a month. Once planted, the farmers have no choice but to look for all options to irrigate it. And the sugar mills have no options but to crush the sugarcane and the downstream water consumption lock in only grows. Since the whole product cycle is so long, once the crop is in place, everyone tries to get the necessary water to run the system, irrespective of drought, water scarcity, irrespective of impact on other sections of society or on long term sustainability. The whole state machinery is a slave to the survival of the sugar manufacturing process, it seems. Even the Comptroller and Auditor General, in its report for five years ending in 2007 have reported how the Sugar Commissionarate sanctioned capacities without considering water availability.
In this situation, it is very important to have credible checks before allowing more sugar factories or expansion of existing sugar factories. However, the basic checks and balances to ensure only sustainable sugarcane crushing capacity is installed seems to have completely failed in Maharashtra. There is no acknowledgement of this reality. In absence of prudent decision making process, the repercussions are bound to be painful and far reaching, the poor and likely to be the worst sufferers.
How much do the small farmers and poor benefit from sugar boom in Solapur? It is true that large number of small farmers and agricultural labourers, including dalits and other backward classes are also benefiting from sugar boom in drought affected districts of Maharashtra. However, a number of researchers have pointed out[19] that benefits to these sections are far less as compared to other sections.Secondly, the adverse impact of allocating most of available water to sugarcane on rest of the sections is disproportionately felt. For example, farmers near Bhima river in Helli village just as Bhima leaves Maharashtra say that most of the times, there is no water in the river and their weir never gets filled due to abstraction in the upstream. What about these small holding farmers? Today there does not seem to be even an acknowledgement of the collateral damage this sugar boom in Solapur and other drought affected districts is causing. As Osmanabad collector said, currently in villages with sugarcane, there is no drinking water. And as Daya Pawar’s poem given above narrates, it is the women of the poor sections that are facing the worst adverse impacts. Moreover, no one is asking how sustainable are these benefits and what will happen when even the sugar mills bust, as they are bound to?
Women trying to collect water from the dry Seena in Madha where 5 sugar factories will come up. March 2013. Photo: SANDRP
When Sweet Lime plantations over thousands of hectares died in Marathwada in the absence of water this year and when hapless farmers set their own horticultural plantations on fire as they could not bear to witness the wilting and dying trees they planted, sugarcane still continued to get water. So while there is a lobby to protect the sugarcane farmers, no such luck for other farmers.
Burnt Sweet Lime plantations in Osmanabad. Courtesy: Times of India
Once farmers have cultivated sugarcane, the sugar industries hide behind the farmers saying what will happen to the farmers if factories do not process this cane. While the risk of cultivating sugarcane and fighting for its water falls on the farmers, sugar industries are insulated from any risk, in the name of farmers and can continue crushing, using thousands of lakhs of litres of water and polluting even more water.
Is drip irrigation the ultimate solution? In the entire discourse on the costs and efficiency of sugarcane in Maharashtra, the water angle, which is of a paramount importance as demonstrated this year, is the most neglected. Institutes like Vasantdada Sugar Institute (VSI) (For every quintal of sugar generated by Sugar Factories, Rs 1 goes to VSI) and the Sugar Commissionerate seem strategically silent on this. When we contacted the drip irrigation cell in Vasantdada Sugar Institute to inquire about the area of sugarcane under drip irrigation, we were told by the person in-charge that Drip Irrigation Cell itself does not have these figures. This indicates either that this data is not available or they are not ready to share available information
Maharashtra Chief Minister and Commission on Agriculture Costs and Prices, Ministry of Agriculture have said this year that there is need to make drip irrigation mandatory for sugarcane cultivation in Maharashtra. This looks more like a band aid solution, which will continue the status quo of massive sugarcane cultivation in drought prone areas without asking if this is sustainable. In absence of such questions, drip irrigation could become a reason to continue to expand unsustainable sugar mills and sugarcane cultivation in drought prone areas, effectively using more water.
While claiming that Maharashtra has the highest efficiency of sugarcane in the country, it is forgotten that if crop duration and water consumption factors are added in the equation, Uttar Pradesh is more efficient than Maharashtra by a whopping 175%.[20] Maharashtra consumes on an average 1000 litres more water than UP to produce 1 kilogram of sugar.
In the end, while the High Court decision on releasing water for Ujani from upstream dams is welcome in one sense, the water releases from upstream dams is likely to be used up for the same unsustainable sugarcane cultivation in Solapur and along the way in Pune region. There is an urgent need to look at the bigger picture as to how in the water situation worsened so much in Solapur that the region producing most sugarcane does not have drinking water. Drought is a common phenomenon in this region for centuries, as described by the Solapur district Gazetteer. Solapur experiences drought once in every five years. In the context of climate change, rainfall will become more unreliable and drought more frequent. But if corrective steps are not taken about the unsustainable sugar boom in Solapur, we may be inviting worst disasters in future. These include encouraging sustainable cropping pattern including oilseeds, cereals and millets.
It is high time there is a public debate about why Sustainable Sugar won’t rhyme with Solapur other drought prone districts in Maharashtra. There is an urgent need to stop setting new sugar factories in these regions, review the existing ones through credible independent process and ensure that lessons learned during the 2012-13 drought are not forgotten soon.
Note: Information from Maharashtra Water and Irrigation Commission, numbers in first column as per the same report; taluka wise area figures following http://solapur.nic.in
Sub basin No
Sub Basin Name
Talukas of Solapuar in the sub basin (area of the taluka in sub-basin)
Area of Solapur in the sub-basin
Solapur area in the sub basin as % of sub basin area
Note: For some of the proposed factories where we could not get figures of crushing capacity, we have assumed it to be 2500 T/d, the normal minimum capacity. Source: Sugar Commissionarate, Pune
[1] From Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development, Zed books, Vandana Shiva, 1988
[7] Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices, Ministry of Agriculture, Price Policy for Sugarcane, the 2013-14 Sugar Season Report: puts Maharashtra average productivity at 80 tonnes per hectare, Vasant Dada Sugar institute Report Dnyan Yag 2012 puts it 83 tonnes per hectare. We have assumed 81 tonnes/ hectare.
[8] Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices, Ministry of Agriculture, Price Policy for Sugarcane, the 2013-14 Sugar Season Report: Chapter 5
[9] CACP chairman Prof Gulati clarified to us through email on April 21, 2013, the water requirement per Tonne sugarcane produced, as given in the CACP report is calculated at farm and the irrigation efficiency would depend on the source.
[12] Sakhar Diary 2013, a leading reference book for sugarcane cultivators and factories in Maharashtra.
[13] Certifying that the new factory locations are 25 km or more from the nearest existing sugar factories, as per the Dec 2012 notification from Govt of India.
That question may sound slightly irreverent and irrelevant.
Maharashtra is the highest sugar producing state of India. Its sugarcane yield in 2011-12 was 80.1 t/ha, compared to the yield of 59.6 t/ha for the second highest sugar producing state Uttar Pradesh and national average of 70.3 t/ha. The average sugar recovery rate of the four sugarcane cultivation methods in Maharashtra was 11.32% in 2011-12, the recovery rate of Adsali sugarcane was even higher at 12.3%. The Maharashtra average was way above that of UP at 9.16% and all India rate of 10.2%. In fact the land productivity adjusted for recovery rate is even higher for Maharashtra at 98.8 t/ha (161.14 t/ha for Adsali) compared to 61.04 t/ha for UP. The yield per month when adjusted for recovery rate is 7.56 t/ha/month compared to 6.33 t/ha/month for UP.
So with the highest production, high yield and high recovery rate, there should be no question of efficiency of Maharashtra sugarcane crop.
Indeed.
Methods of Sugarcane cultivation in Maharashtra Let us understand the basic parameters of how sugarcane crop is grown in Maharashtra, see the table 1 below.
Table 1. Basic parameters of sugarcane crop in Maharashtra in 2011-12
Source: Price Policy for Sugarcane: the 2013-14 Sugar season, Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India, Aug 2012, Table 5.1
Of the four sugarcane cultivation methods prevalent in Maharashtra, Ratoon is most popular with 40% cane area under it, possibly since it has shortest duration at 11 months, fitting almost perfectly with the annual Oct to March cane crushing season. Same can be said about Suru method, having duration of 12 months and coverage of 20%, both methods requiring 22.5 irrigations, each of 7.5 cm depth. Adsali method has the highest yield and recovery rate, but only 10% of the sugarcane area is under this method, possibly since it has the longest duration at 17 months. It is most water intensive, requiring 32.5 irrigations. Pre-seasonal method, as the name suggests, is planted about 2.5 months before the season, and stands between Ratoon and Adsali in terms of duration, yield and recovery rate.
Water Productivity The latest report from CACP from which the above figures are taken, however states that land productivity alone does not give correct picture, “…as land and water are increasingly becoming scarce in India with high opportunity costs. Therefore, the real resource cost of growing sugarcane in different regions cannot be correctly compared unless land productivity is normalised for the time duration of crop, its water intake, and its recovery rate.” To make such a comparison, CACP made a table, a part of which is given above in Table 1.
However, CACP has gone a step further than the figures in Table 1 (though there is an error in CACP calculations here, we have pointed this out to CACP). CACP has calculated water productivity of different sugarcane methods in Maharashtra and compared them with the water productivity in UP. The average water productivity of sugarcane in Maharashtra comes to 0.403 T/ha/month/’000 m3 water, compared to 1.11 for UP. This means that while UP seemed inefficient in sugarcane productivity in everyway, Maharashtra is inefficient by 175.43% when productivity per unit of water consumption is considered.
How is this possible? The reason why sugarcane productivity of UP in terms of water is higher is simple: UP sugarcane crop is of shorter 9-10 months duration and requires only 7-8 irrigations, approximately less than once a month. As against this, Maharashtra sugarcane crop requires irrigation every 15 days and that too for longer duration. To put it another way, while on average Maharashtra needs 25 irrigations for sugarcane crop, UP needs 7.6.
Water required per kg of sugar The CACP report further calculates that in Maharashtra every kilogram of sugar needs 2068 litres of water, where as in UP the requirement is almost half, at 1044 litres. This is indeed a telling figure. Add to it, as CACP report puts it, “real cost of water in Maharashtra is at least 2 to 3 times higher than that in UP”.
In response to a specific question, CACP chairman Dr Ashok Gulati wrote to me that this water calculation does not include the water used by sugar mills. If water used by sugar mills and water used in further downstream processing is included, the water consumption in sugar production is will go up substantially.
How sugar mills lock up Maharashtra’s water future Considering water becomes even more important, looking at the kind of impact sugarcane cultivation is having in Maharashtra this drought season. Here it may be recalled that sugarcane is a long duration trans-season crop that has implications for water consumption beyond the point where decision for planting is taken. So even if the rainfall is normal or above when the crop is planted, the same crop will continue to have high water demand in the following year when it may be drought year. This creates really serious implications for water availability in the drought year particularly in drought prone, low rainfall areas. The impact on water available becomes even more serious in a state like Maharashtra where sugar mills are set up irrespective of water availability, violating the norms of distances, where sugar factories operate at way beyond their sanctioned capacity, where they violate the norms of no more than 5% of cultivable land under sugarcane, they dump untreated effluents into water bodies, thus polluting the water in such water bodies and so on. The lock in becomes even more stronger with the setting up of sugar mills, since their owners would like to get maximum cane every year, irrespective of water availability situation.
The CACP report says Maharashtra is further worse off in terms of cost of providing water for sugarcane, “If this costing is included in calculating water productivity, the difference in sugarcane yields will be so high that, Uttar Pradesh and presumably Bihar, would turn out to be the most efficient producers of sugar per unit cost of water, adjusted for time duration and recovery.” CACP goes on to say that Maharashtra sugarcane grown on 3% of the total cropped area of the state, takes away 60% of irrigation water in the state, “leading to massive inequity in the use of water within the state”. These figures might be slightly outdated considering the expansion of sugar factories and sugarcane cultivation in recent years.
Band aid solutions won’t help One recommendation CACP report makes for Maharashtra is that much of sugarcane in the state must be brought under drip. Even the Chief Minister of State and the Union Agricultural Minister has made same recommendation. We are not sure if this is really a solution since this is unlikely to curb the unsustainable levels of sugarcane in drought prone districts of Maharashtra, considering the politics involved in the issue with large number of politicians owning sugar factories.
As per the Maharashtra Economic Survey figures for last two years, Maharashtra has provided subsidy for drip irrigation in 5.68 lakh ha and for sprinkler irrigation in 2.33 lakh ha between 2005-06 and 2011-12, thus providing subsidy for covering 8.01 lakh ha for these two techniques in these seven years. However, we see no impact of so much area under the drip and sprinkler irrigation on water situation in the state, nor do we see much of sugarcane under drip. State institute like the VSI does not even know how much sugarcane is under drip even though it has a section just for drip irrigation. More investment in drip for sugarcane is likely to give reasons for expansion of sugarcane empire in drought prone districts, in addition to opening the doors for more corruption.
Another method called Sustainable Sugarcane Initiative can help the farmers to produce at least 20 per cent more sugarcane, and that too with 30 per cent of reduced water consumption and 20 per cent less chemical inputs. CACP report, though is silent on this.
Options like drip irrigation and sustainable sugarcane initiative should be explored for sugarcane cultivation in relatively water rich areas. However, in immediate future, Maharashtra needs to cancel all new licenses for sugar mills and put a halt to new mills and expansion of existing sugar mills in drought prone districts. For existing sugar factories, it needs to decide the level of sustainable sugarcane cultivation in each drought prone district through a transparent, independent process. Immediately in this drought year, no more water should be allowed to be used for sugarcane cultivation in drought prone districts.
Maharashtra faces a very challenging water future even if all these steps are implemented. Its water future is very bleak if no serious move is made in this direction.
South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers & People (www.sandrp.in)
References:
1. Price Policy for Sugarcane: the 2013-14 Sugar season, Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India, Aug 2012 http://cacp.dacnet.nic.in/RPP/Sugarcane-2013-14.pdf
Through its order on April 9, 2013 the Mumbai High Court has asked Maharashtra Govt to release water from upstream dams to Ujani dam for mitigating drought in Solapur. The decision is welcome if the water released from upstream dam were to be used for the drought affected in Solapur. A division bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice M S Sanklecha directed the government to release as much water as possible within 24 hours. The High Court’s order came in response to a PIL filed by a Solapur-based activist, Shankarrao Sathe. The PIL says that the Ujani dam gets water from the Bhima River which starts from Karjat in the Western Ghats. Between the source of the river and the dam, there are 20-22 dams.
Highly-placed sources informed that soon after the High Court order, a high-level meeting was held in Mumbai to discuss the issue of release of water for Solapur as per the court orders. Senior officials from Sinchan Bhavan in Pune attended the meeting which explored the options best suited for release of water to Ujani dam. The sources informed that it is likely that 2.5 TMC (70.8 MCM) water would be released from Bhama Askhed dam while half a TMC (14.16 MCM) water would be released from Andra dam, the WRIS map above shows the location of both these reservoirs. The water release would start from April 10, 2013, an official said. Bhama Askhed dam has design live storage capacity of 208.11 MCM and as per the latest (April 8, 2013) information, the dam had 124 MCM. Andra Valley dam has live storage capacity of 82.75 MCM. Both are irrigation and hydropower projects.
However, the moot question is, how much water would actually reach Ujani dam and how of that, how much water will really reach the drought affected people. Under the current circumstances, it is seriously doubtful if any significant proportion of the water released from upstream dams would reach the drought prone people, unless specific steps are taken to ensure the water is not diverted for non drought relief purposes.
In that context, it needs to be noted that the water released from Bhama Asakhed and Andra Valley dams will have to travel about 250 km before it would reach the Ujani Dam. A very large portion of the water would be lost in evaporation and seepage and some also would be taken out by the enroute farmers as happened in the past with other water releases in Maharashtra earlier this year.
Moreover, Bhama Asakhed dam has irrigation potential of 29,465 Ha, but as per Irrigation Dept white paper, had irrigated area of just 434 ha by June 2012. The dam has 124 MCM storage now because it has not developed its irrigation potential over a decade since the dam has been completed. Why has that irrigation potential not realised? Pune has been eyeing water from Bhama Askhed for augmenting its water supply for a long time now, a demand backed by the same politicians who made mocked drought affected farmers.Similar questions also arise for Andra Valley dam.
Secondly, as per Solapur CADA website, the water level in Ujani dam as on April 9, 2013 is 16.74 TMC (474.3 MCM) below the live storage level. So even if the 3 TMC proposed to be released were to reach Ujani, the water level would still remain far below dead storage level.
Unfortunately, the Maharashtra Water Resources Department has never been able to control unauthorised use, let alone promote equitable usage of water from canals, dams and rivers. In our earlier blog, we showed how, even when it was clear that Maharashtra was going to face serious drought in 2012-13, no attempt was made to curb sugarcane farming, running of sugar mills or wine distilleries even when district officials have asked for such steps. This is also highlighted in the current drought, water conflicts in Manmad, in Nandur Madhyameshwar, in Mula Dam for Jayakwadi could not be resolved by the Water Resources Department.
With this background, though it is indeed a welcome decision that HC has ordered water release for Ujani from Pune Dams, it will be doubtful how much of that water will reach the purpose and area that it is meant for. The fact that all dams in a basin should have uniform water by the end of October is enshrined in the MWRRA Act 2005. It says:
Section 11: Power, functions and duties of the Authority states:
to determine the priority of equitable distribution of water available at the water resource project, sub-basin and river basin levels during periods of scarcity;
Section 12: General Policies of the Authority states:
“in order to share the distress in the river basin of sub-basin equitably, the water stored in the reservoirs in the basin or sub-basin, as the case may be, shall be controlled by the end of October every year in such way that, the percentage of utilizable water, including kharif use, shall, for all reservoirs approximately be the same”.
However, the establishment has made a mockery of this law by actually claiming that[1] MWRRA does not effectively exist as it does not have a Chairperson or expert members!
How can we then depend on the same WRD to ensure that water reaches Solapur and affected regions? When we know that the Khadakwasala RBC and LBC as well as Ujani RBC and LBC canal systems are leaking and in a state of dispair? That there are hundreds of unathorised lifts and siphons all along the way from Pune to Solapur?
Mismanagement and misuse of Ujani water has reached its new heights during this drought, when, the dam water was supplied water exclusively to sugarcane lobby and factories.
Under the circumstances, firstly, the High Court and the Govt of Maharashtra, in stead should consider the option of stopping the west ward diversion of water from the six Tata dams, as that would provide much more substantial water for the downstream Bhima basin.
Secondly, the High Court should also direct Maharashtra govt to formulate a policy for reservoir operations so that through out the filling period, there is sufficient water releases from all dams so that at the end of the monsoon, dams in any basin or sub basin have equitable water storage. This will ensure that High Court orders does not remain a fire fighting step, but has longer term implications.
The High Court would also need to ask the State govt as to what steps it has taken to ensure that the water released for Ujani actually goes to the deserving drought prone area and also what steps have been taken to stop the unjustifiable, unviable and unsustainable water use activities like westward diversions, sugarcane cultivation and sugar mill operations in drought period are stopped. Without all these steps, the welcome decision of High Court may not really serve the purpose it is supposed to serve.
Introduction Two weeks back I visited these farmers protesting at Azad Maidan and requesting for water to be released to canals (Right and Left Bank Canals of Ujani dam) for the Solapur district for their drinking water needs. They (there were women too) represent Solapur Jilha Janahit Shetakari Sangathana (SJJSS). The man with prominent injury in the center is their leader Mr. Prabhakar (bhaiya) Deshmukh, who was publicly mocked at by no other than Maharashtra Dy. CM, Ajit Pawar on April 7, 2013 in absolute tasteless language. There can be different views over effectiveness of releasing the water from canals for drinking water needs in Solapur villages. Nonetheless, the public sentiments cannot be ridiculed by any one, leave aside the Dy. CM. Particularly when the Maharashtra government has some real options to solve the problems raised by Prabhakar Deshkukh.
Solapur farmers on satyagarha in Mumbai for drinking water for two months Photo- SANDRP
Analysis Ujani dam, the biggest dam on Bhima River (Bhima river meets Krishna river in downstream Karnataka near Raichur), which supplies water to Solapur district, does not have any water left in its live storage – in fact, the attached graph shows that the level has gone in negative, which means the water level has gone below its live water storage capacity- in such case, judicious water consumption should have been the norm. It should have been adopted once it was confirmed by Aug 2012 that the area will be facing drought this year. Strict ban on sugar cane crushing, sugar cane plantation, effective water recycling, stopping westward water diversions from Bhima river, etc. are some of these options, none of which the administrators have perused with any seriousness.
Bhima before it reaches Solapur It is important to study the upstream situation of Mula, Mutha, Pavana and Bhima rivers before it flows down to Ujani dam. This first leads us to west-ward transfers of water from drought affected Bhima river basin to high rainfall (3000 mm or more annually) Konkan region for power generation. The attached maps depict this westward diversion projects. For hydro power generation, Tata Power transfers the water from these rivers across the Western Ghats through underground water tunnels, to the western side i.e. Konkan region which actually receives surplus rainfall. Such projects are highlighted in the Maps obtained from Water Resources Information System (WRIS). The six water reservoirs (Mulshi, Thokewadi, Shirawatha, Walwan, Lonavvala and Kundali), parts of the three Tata hydropower projects (150 MW Bhira, 72 MW Bivpuri and 72 MW Khopoli) could be seen on the eastern side of the dotted line which is Western Ghats ridge line.
Water supply in Pune district Pune is intersected by rivers Mula, Mutha, and Pawana which are tributaries of Bhima. In Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad region, there are 5 major dams which control the river flow downstream viz. Temghar, Panshet, Varasgaon, Khadakvasala and Pawana. There is Ujani dam in Solapur on Bhima River itself. It is indeed a cause of concern that the live storage in Ujani dam has reached in its negative capacity (-30%) when, upstream all these dams are showing quite healthy trend of water storage of their capacity. The following graph is compiled using the most recent available figures from Water Resources Department and Command Development Authority (CADA), Solapur.
It is clear that while Solapur is reeling under sever water crises, Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad metropolitan area have adequate water supply. This situation raises question on the equity of our water sharing practices; not just on inter-state but even also on inter-district ones! In fact a case has been filed in which Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority is a respondent, asking for water release from upstream dams in Pune for Ujani Dam. In Pune district, apart from annual draft of underground 1015 MCM out of available 1442 MCM water[1], a study[2] on Urban water distribution states that, PMC is supplying so much water today that it would be sufficient to sustain Pune’s projected population of 2050[3]. There is unevenness in the water distribution with lack of well-designed inter-city water supply coordination. The demand for water has reached 1,164 MLD for Pune city. Water for the city predominantly comes from Khadakvasala dam. On the other hand, large part of the over 1.7 million rural population in Pune district are supplied the drinking water from tankers in March 2013[4]. The government officials claim that the district has enough water storage in the four dams to supply 1.5 TMC water every month till mid-July[5].
Water pollution in Pune district Pune’s record of sewage treatment has been one of the most dismal ones in India, pronmpting even the erstwhile Env. Minister Jairam Ramesh to write a strong letter condemning the Municipal Corporation. Pune Municipal Corporation admits that there is still a gap of over 250 MLD of sewage which is left untreated out of total 700 MLD generated[6]. In case of Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, the administration claims that there is about 50 MLD of sewage still being discharged into river untreated[7]. Experts believe that these figures are entirely misleading. Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad effectively do not treat even 25% of their sewage. Though Pune is required to do so, it does not return a single drop of recycled water into Khadakwasla Left Bank or Right Bank Canals for downstream usage. Pollution Control Board had filed a case against Pune Municipal Corporation in this regard, without any positive outcomes. Out of 30 stations across Maharashtra assessed by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board for exceptionally poor Water Quality Indices, a whopping 18 stations lie in Pune. The picture becomes even grimmer considering the fact that there are 25% of the population who are not connected by established sewage carrying mechanisms[8]. DO of Mula Mutha is routinely near zero is Pune and BOD and COD are extremely high. Even after building more than 6 sewage treatment plants, the condition has not improved.
Sugar mills and sugarcane cultivation Sugar factories also consume huge quantity of water and deliver surplus pollutants in the river. CPCB newsletter Parivesh confirms that sugar factories consume around 1,500- 2,000 liter of water and produce about 1,000 liters of sewage for every ton of sugarcane that they crush[9]. As on 28th February 2013, there are 27 operational cooperative sugar factories in Pune and Solapur combined[10] with total crushing capacity of 83750 tons/day. In addition, in the same region, according to government records, there are 19 private sugar factories[11]. It is not clear whether any of these follow the rule of not establishing a sugar mill in 15 km circumference from any other sugar mill. The staggering figure of daily crushing capacity of 173250 tons/day imparted by 55 sugar cane factories in Pune division (not to be confused with district), leaves us wondering how much of water pollution they would have been caused[12]. In fact people from Daund and Indapur have been protesting about pollution from Pune for the past few years. Moreover there is the issue of massive water consumption by the sugarcane farms that cater to these sugar mills. Even as some of us travelled in these districts in this drought year, we could see sugarcane fields on both sides of the road as we travel from Pune to Solapur, as far as the eye could see. The plantation of sugarcane even after the declaration of drought continued and there was no attempt to curb that by anyone. Nor was there any attempt to stop the functioning of the water mills even in drought. There is of course the larger question of appropriateness of sugarcane cultivation and allowing sugar mills in this drought prone area. We learn that the administration has already sanctioned 31 more sugar factories in Solapur district.
Conclusion There is a huge disparity between water availability in Pune and Solapur districts.
There is no effective machinery to ensure judicious inter-district water sharing.
In the wake of severe drought also, we continue to divert our water to water surplus basins from water deficit Bhima basin
Whatever water is left in the basin, Pune district degrades it, leaving the people downstream in Solapur demanding clean water in addition to their demand for supply of water in the first place[13].
The addiction to sugarcane cultivation and sugar mills is very high even in the drought hit areas. In fact at least the crushing in Pune and Solapur districts should have been stopped right in October when it became clear that the state is going to face drought.
These conclusions also tell us that Dy. CM has a lot of options to work on instead of what he suggested in Indapur on 7th April 2013. The demand for water by Prabhakar Deshmukh and his organization cannot be brushed aside and certainly not in the fashion that Mr. Ajit Pawar did. In stead, he could have immediately directed stopping of westward diversion of water from the six Tata dams so that the water instead flows to the Ujani dam, which can than be used for providing water to the drought hit villages.
Maharashtra is facing one of the worst droughts this year. Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar as well as Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan have said that this year’s drought is worse drought than the one in 1972, which was termed as a ‘famine’. Maharashtra has the highest number of large dams in the country and is now claimed to be suffering the worst drought in four decades or more.
(For more detailed analysis, with tables, please see:
Sugarcane going to sugar factories against teh backdrop of a dry Ujani Canal in Solapur Photo: SANDRP
However, an analysis of the rainfall figures and the monthly rainfall pattern in 1972 and 2012 with respect to the normal rainfall pattern in seventeen drought affected districts shows a different picture. From a Meteorological and agricultural point of view, this year’s drought cannot be called worse than that in 1972. It is possible that hydrologically, this year’s drought may prove to be worse than 1972 for some districts. The blame for this lies entirely on wrong decisions about building unviable and undesirable large dams, wrong cropping patterns, diversion of water for non priority uses, neglect of local water systems and unaccountable water management by the Maharashtra government, MWRRA (Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority, set up in 2005 under a World Bank funded programme) as well as the Union Government.
Let us look at the figures of the rainfall of 1972 and 2012. Table 1 shows monthly normal and actual rainfall for 1972 and 2012 for the months of June to October and their total for the seventeen districts[1] mentioned as drought affected. When the monthly rainfall of 1972 and 2012 shows more than 50% deficit[2] from normal, it is marked in red background for 1972 and in red numbers for 2012.
It is clear from the Table 1 that in June 2012, eight districts had monthly rainfall less than half the normal. In July 2012, no district showed a deficit rainfall more than 50%. In August 2012, the deficit was more than 50% in case of three districts: Aurangabad, Jalna and Osmanabad (these three districts also experienced over 50% deficit in June). This was the case for only Jalna in Sept 2012 and for Dhule and Jalgaon in Oct 2012. It seems from this comparison that Aurangabad, Jalna and Osmanabad were some of the worst drought affected districts this year, which is indeed the case.
In comparison, the number of districts that faced more than 50% deficit in monthly rainfall in 1972 were: 3 in June, 9 in July, 9 in August, 6 in September and all 17 in October 1972. This comparison between 1972 and 2012 for the number of districts facing over 50% deficit in monsoon months clearly tells us that the 1972 rainfall was much lower than the 2012 rainfall for every month with the sole exception of June.
Sugarcane in various stages of growth in Solapur, in March 2013 Photo: SANDRP
Table 2 gives the total rainfall of these five months (June-Oct) in a normal year, in 1972 and in 2012 for these districts. This table also gives the 2012 rainfall as % of the normal rainfall and as % of 1972 rainfall in separate columns. It is clear from this comparison that only in case of two districts (Sangli and Dhule) is the 2012 rainfall substantially lower than 1972. In two other districts (Jalna and Satara) the rainfall in 2012 is lower than that in 1972, but difference is less than 7% in both cases. In remaining thirteen districts, the monsoon rainfall in 2012 was more than that in 1972.
While comparing the 1972 and 2012-13 droughts, it must be kept in mind that rainfall in 1971, the year before the 1972 drought was also low. In comparison, rainfall in Maharashtra was above average in 2011 & most of the dams were full. Maharashtra Economic Survey for 2011-12 notes, “Total rainfall in the State during 2011 was 102.3 per cent of the normal rainfall.” The state agriculture commissioner had stated in 2011: “The good distribution of rain has resulted in good quality of crops. The above average rainfall has filled up nearly all dams, which will help replenish the soil in the run-up to the rabi season.”[3]
Table 1 Normal, 1972 and 2012 Rainfall (in mm) in Drought Affected Districts
In addition, Maharashtra has by far the largest number of Big Dam in India. In 1972, some of the big irrigation projects in the worst drought affected districts. In 40 years since 1972, Maharashtra has built a very large number of big dams, ostensibly to help these drought prone areas. For example, Aurangabad has Jayakwadi project (completed in 1976), Beed has Mazalagaon Project (Jayakwadi Stage II), Jalna has Upper Dudhna and Lower Dudhna projects. Osmanabad depends partly on Ujani Dam, partly on schemes in Krishna basin, Solapur completely depends on Ujani. Live storage of most of the dams in drought affected districts is either 0 or near zero today. All these projects and increased groundwater use facilities in 2012 should actually be able to reduce the impact of rainfall deficit in 2012, which is lower than the deficit of 1972. But the situation is actually the worse in 2012 compared to 1972, claims the Chief Minister and the Union Agriculture Minister. So what are the reasons for this? For one, area under sugarcane in Maharashtra was 167 000 ha in 1970-71, going up to 1022 000 ha in 2011-12 (Maharashtra Economic Survey 2012-13).
Chart showing district-wise Normal, 1972 and 2012 rainfall for the 16 drought affected districts of Maharashtra
As can be seen from the profiles of some of the districts given in Table 3 and accompanying chart, Solapur, Pune, Ahmednagar, Sangli, Satara, Osmanabad, Beed, Latur, Nashik, Jalna, Parbhani and Aurangabad, all drought prone and drought affected districts are major sugar producing centres of the State. They collectively produce 79.5% of sugar produced in Maharashtra. According to Maharashtra Economic Survey for 2012-13, “As on 31st December, 2012, out of the total sugar production in the country, the share of State was 35.3 per cent”. So more the drought prone districts of Maharashtra produce more than a quarter of India’s sugar!
Table 2 Total Rainfall in drought affected districts in 1972 as against 2012 (in mm)
Districts
Normal
1972
2012
2012 as % of Normal
2012 as % of 1972
1
Ahmednagar
497.1
319.9
383.3
77.1
119.8
2
Pune
830.1
661.1
676.6
81.5
102.3
3
Solapur
559.7
251.1
412.0
73.6
164.1
4
Satara
922.1
980.4
917.8
99.5
93.6
5
Sangli
551.6
665.2
407.9
73.9
61.6
6
Aurangabad
675.3
289.8
368.8
54.6
127.2
7
Jalna
688.1
336.4
324.0
47.1
96.3
8
Beed
668.5
271.1
434.9
65.1
160.4
9
Latur
788.6
325.9
760.0
96.4
233.2
10
Osmanabad
741.7
257.4
390.6
52.7
151.7
11
Nanded
943.7
382.3
660.7
70.0
172.8
12
Akola
734.9
567.5
828.1
112.7
145.9
13
Nashik
1073.9
643.1
863.4
80.4
134.3
14
Dhule
566.4
538.0
405.7
71.6
75.4
15
Jalgaon
702.9
379.6
404.6
57.6
106.6
16
Parbhani
776.6
342.6
637.1
82.0
186.0
17
Buldhana
713.0
453.2
612.2
85.9
135.1
As one travelled during March 2013 in some of the drought affected districts like Pune, Solapur, Ahmednagar and Nashik one saw unending fields of sugarcane, and some of Banana and Grapes on both sides of the road. Many of these fields were planted after August 2012 when it was known that Maharashtra would be facing a drought this year. There was no attempt by anyone in the Maharashtra govt or administration to curb either planting of sugarcane and other water intensive crops or to curb any of the water intensive activities like running of sugar and wine factories in the drought affected districts. The builders continued to advertise sale of houses attached with swimming pools in drought affected areas. Maharashtra continues to divert millions of cubic meters of water everyday, out of the Krishna and Bheema basin, to the Konkan area with average rainfall of over 3000 mm. The manager of Solapur Hotel said that there is no water scarcity. Groundwater levels are down, but there seemed little sign of drought in most of these areas. The poor and the cattle are facing the water shortage. However, it seems those who had the money and power continued to get as much water as they needed, for whatever purpose they want it for. An NDTV programme on March 29, 2013 accused NCP leaders of stealing water in times of drought[4].
Table 3: Profiles of some of the drought affected districts
Area in ‘000 ha
Ahmednagar
Aurangabad
Beed
Jalna
Osmanabad
Sangli
Solapur
Pune
Geographical area
1702
1007.7
1068.6
772.6
748.5
861
1487.8
1562
Sown area
1146.3
654
876
529
519.3
557.1
919.7
945
Net Irrigated area
330
163.3
137.7
116.5
106.66
174
251.5
287
Canal irrigated area
84
31.05
108.92
22.17
18.72
45
31.4
121.5
GW irrigated
246
130.31
Nil
91.28
102.74
38.5
193.5
92.3
Sugarcane area
2007-08
133.3
34.3
74
25.1
53.8
64.7
154.5
104.2
2010-11
126
23.3
58.8
19.3
43.2
76.3
163.1
111.5
Amazingly, the Maharashtra Economic Survey for 2012-13, published after March 19, 2013[5] does not mention that the state is suffering from drought, leave aside giving details of the drought prone areas. Interestingly, it says that during 2012 monsoon, Maharashtra suffered rainfall deficit of 9.7% and that 10 districts and 136 talukas had deficit over 25%. And Yet the survey reported that water availability situation was alarming in Aurangabad, Jalna, Beed, Osmanabad, Nanded, Ahmednagar, Nashik, Jalgaon Pune, Satara, Sangli, Solapur and Buldhana (13 districts). These districts, the survey said, suffered “very severe water scarcity”. It said 1779 villages were supplied water through tankers as on March 4, 2013, topping the list was Aurangabad division with 771 villages. 4709 wadis were also supplied water through tankers, topping the list here was Pune division with 3197 wadis.
MWRRA and the state machinery have entirely failed in managing water levels at Jayakwadi & Ujni dams and releases from the upstream dam releases. There has been no serious attempt at controlling area under sugarcane and sugarcane crushing in the drought areas or controlling unauthorised sugarcane cultivation around Ujani backwaters, or unauthorised lifts from upstream of many dams like Nandur Madhyameshwar and through canal systems Majalgaon Project or lifting of water from the river beds for sugarcane or curbing other non essential water intensive activities. In fact all efforts have been towards increasing the area under sugarcane and other water intensive activities in the drought prone areas. In affidavit in the High Court, Maharashtra government said on March 28, 2013 that MWRRA effectively does not exist!
40 years after Maharashtra’s worst drought of 1972, the state seem to be in worse situation this year, despite spending lakhs of crores on irrigation projects and despite putting in place numerous institutions and authorities to manage water. While 1972 drought could be called a natural calamity, 2012-13 drought is a disaster of water management accompanied by corruption, extremely water intensive cropping pattern unsuitable for the drought prone areas, pushed by the government and the politicians, top heavy institutions without local participation or transparency, absence of responsive disaster management system and absence of a long term view to manage drought.
[2] It may be noted here that India Meteorological office calls rainfall deficient when deficit is 20-60% and scanty when deficit is more than 60%. We have used the figure for 50% just for comparison here.
During the last few months several contradictory facts have been surfacing about fish ladders. Fish Ladders are small elevated steps or passes made in dams, with water releases to enable fish to migrate in the upstream (or downstream) of the dam.
This upstream migration is a part of the reproductive cycle of many fish, like Hilsa and Mahseer in India.
A study in the United States, a country with comprehensive attention to impacts of dams on fish, has concluded that actual numbers of fish who make it to their spawning grounds above dams with fish passages is a small fraction of targeted goals of these facilitie. For example, for American shad (Incidentally, Hilsa is also a type of Shad) – an important species for commercial and recreational fisheries that sustained generations on the East coast of the US – on average about only 3% percent of the fish that pass the first fishway make it past the last dam with a fishway in these rivers. Another example is that species such as Atlantic sturgeon cannot pass fish ladders—so for certain species, fishways do not work at all. Thus, in these systems, effective up and down stream passage is not being provided for anadromous fish. The result is that these species are getting listed as endangered or threatened one by one. The study actually concludes that looking at the dismal success rate of fish ladders and hatchery based recovery programs, “Ecologically and economically significant species restoration is not possible without dam removals”. (International Rivers)
A spectacular film “End of the River” chronicles the impact of small hydropower dams on fish in Europe. The film says that water released from the fish ladders is not enough for the fish species to survive in the downstream. https://sandrp.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/the-end-of-the-river/)
At the same time, ecologically designed fish ladders do help the fish get across the impediment of dams in some cases. For example, a weir on River Elbe in Germany counted its Millionth migrating fish in January 2013, 3 years after it was built.(http://www.dw.de/german-fish-ladder-celebrates-millionth-user/a-16509927)
Lesson for India seems to be that, in keeping with our livelihood dependency on riverine fish and their ecological value:
Dams should not be built in ecologically important regions with documented fish diversity like in Western Ghats, Eastern Himalayas, near river confluences and near estuaries.
Existing dams, where feasible, should have fish ladders and passages designed for Indian species, these should be monitored by independent committees with local participation
all small hydel projects should have functioning fish ladders and most importantly,
ALL dams should release e-flows which exceed the flows needed for fish survival and migration. E-flows should be released through fish passages and not turbines. They should keep in mind the need for longitudinal and lateral connectivities.
No in stream sand mining should be allowed. No diversion of water for sand mining should be allowed. Sand mining should only be done manually, use of machine should not be allowed.
Unfortunately, even India’s premier research institutes like CIFRI are recommending eflows which are insufficient for species like trouts to survive. Its not a coincidence that these recommendations are very convenient for the private dam developers who are funding these studies.
The current drought situation in the state has been engineered by the state government, which has diverted water to cash crops, alleged Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator of the South Asia Network of Dams, Rivers and People.
He was speaking at the opening session of the two-day conference titled, ‘The water sector of India – challenges and prospects’ here on Saturday. The event was organised by the Karve Institute of Social Service as part of its golden jubilee celebrations.
Thakkar said, “If we compare the 1972 rainfall to this year’s, we can see that the rainfall this year is higher. The sugarcane crop has not been affected this year, though there is a severe drought. This shows that water is being diverted to sugarcane at the expense of other crops. At the same time, water is being diverted from the Krishna basin to the Koyna power plant to be used for electricity generation.”
Thakkar added that though thousands of crores of rupees had been spent on building dams in the last 20 years, the net irrigated area in the country has not increased much.
He said the drought in Maharashtra was engineered. “Despite what we hear about the severity of the drought, the fact is that the sugarcane production in the state has not dropped,” he said.
The sugarcane crop has not suffered at all. Though the government of Maharashtra has spent thousands of crores of rupees on new dams in the last 20 years, irrigated area in the state has not increased much. The irrigation department officials are not accountable to the people.”
He said that today groundwater was the mainstay of the people, especially in rural areas. “Both rural water supply and irrigation are largely supplied through groundwater, but there is no regulation of this resource. With every passing day, our dependence on groundwater is rising, but we are not doing anything to protect or preserve our groundwater sources,” he said.
Thakkar added that rising water pollution was another major challenge. He slammed the central and state pollution control boards for their failure to ensure clean water bodies. The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act was passed in 1974, after which the states set up the state pollution control boards. But today, there are hardly any water bodies that have been made clean by these boards. “There is hardly any example of a polluted water body in the country that was cleaned by the boards since 1974,” he said.
Another expert too pointed out the different treatment given to the sugarcane crop. Shripad Dharmadhikari, a policy researcher at Manthan Adhyana Kendra, Pune said, “The major problem over water is that there is no mechanism of allocating water. Though Maharashtra has over 30 per cent of the nation’s major dams, the water is only being used for sugarcane crop. What one sees in many villages is that people are struggling to get drinking water, while on other hand the sugarcane crop is well-irrigated. We should give priority for drinking water over all other requirements.”
Some experts spoke on the need for planning. Himanshu Kulkarni, secretary of the NGO, Advanced Centre for Water Resources Development and Management (Acwadam), said that the biggest problem today is the absence of planning to meet water needs. “We need to have a plan for the next 15 years in order to preserve water sources, especially groundwater. There is a clear link between the current drought and the over-extraction of groundwater.”
Magasasay awardee Rajendra Singhji of Tarun Bharat Sangh and Jal Biradari said there were four key components in protecting natural resources like water. “One is to control water evaporation; second, enhance ground water; third, take control over your own life (uske bad apna jivan chalawo); and finally stand up against those who loot your resources.” He spoke at the last session of the first day of the state-level event organised as part of Karve Institute’s golden jubilee celebrations.
The fact that the state’s most drought-prone regions have continued to devote precious resources for highly water-intensive sugarcane cultivation and sugar production indicates that there is more to the region’s water crisis than climatic conditions alone. Parineeta Dandekar analyses.
This year seems to be a year of basalt-hard lessons for Maharashtra. The year saw the irrigation scam, sugarcane farmers protesting for a fair price (leading to the death of two farmers) and now a ‘drought worse than 1972’ with 11,801 villages declared to be drought affected in March 2013.
If we analyse these three events in perspective, their link becomes inextricably clear. This year’s drought, though devastating, was not an unannounced calamity. It had been building up since August 2012, when more than 400 villages were declared drought-affected. The protest by sugarcane farmers was not a sudden outburst either; their discontent over fair price for sugarcane had been simmering and occasionally boiling over for the past few years. Last but not the least, the irrigation scam, though unprecedented in scale, was not a sudden revelation. Many NGOs, whistle blowers and government committees had been warning about the tip of the iceberg for several years.
Many experts, organisations and reports like World Bank have highlighted the unjustifiably high share of sugarcane in Maharashtra’s irrigation
That all these factors came together in one year is not just an unfortunate coincidence. It shows that the reasons behind the Maharashtra drought are starker than simply less rainfall. Unless these root causes are addressed, no amount of state and central assistance can banish droughts. Farmers and rural and urban poor have been suffering for too long due to the opportunistic and myopic response of the political and administrative leadership in Maharashtra to successive droughts. To understand and change this, we need to first take a long, deep look at some of the reasons sparking the water shortage:
Worst drought-affected districts have the most sugar factories
Sugarcane is one of the most water-intensive crops grown in Maharashtra, requiring ten times more water than Jowar or nut. Ironically, the regions where it is grown the most are chronically drought hit regions, which have been receiving central aid for drought proofing though the Drought Proof Area Program and other such schemes. Sugarcane area under drip irrigation in these regions is dismally low.
According to the Water Resources Department, Maharashtra, in 2009-10, of the approximate 25 lakh hectares (Ha) of irrigated area in Maharashtra, 3,97,000 Ha was under sugarcane. However, according to the Union Agricultural Ministry (which would get its data from the State Agricultural Department), area under sugarcane was 9,70,000 hectares in 2010-11 and again 10,02, 000 hectares in 2011-12.
When it was grown on 16% Irrigated area, sugarcane used 76% of all water for Irrigation. With area under sugarcane increasing, its hegemony has increased exponentially. Not only does it capture maximum water, it results in water logging, salinity and severe water pollution by sugar factories. Incidentally, Maharashtra has 209 sugar factories, the highest in any state in India.
A strong example of links between drought and sugarcane may be found in the Solapur District in the Bhima Basin, which is facing the worst of droughts today. Live storage of Ujani Dam is zero and drinking water is being taken from dead storage, even as Solapur and 400 villages depend on Ujani for drinking water. Drinking water supply has become a severe problem. Hundreds of villages and blocks have been declared drought affected. Nearly 1000 tankers have been plying, and there is a near exodus of stricken communities to urban areas.
When it was grown on 16% Irrigated area, sugarcane used 76% of all water for Irrigation. With area under sugarcane increasing, its hegemony has increased exponentially. Not only does it capture maximum water, it results in water logging, salinity and severe water pollution by sugar factories. Incidentally, Maharashtra has 209 sugar factories, the highest in any state in India.
Solapur also includes the Union Agriculture Minister’s parliamentary constituency Madha. This chronically drought-prone district, with average annual rainfall of 550 mm, is the largest sugarcane producer in Maharashtra with the densest concentration of sugar factories and area under sugarcane . That such water intensive cropping pattern in an arid region should flourish in Union Minister of Agriculture Sharad Pawar’s constituency speaks volumes about the political backing for sugarcane and the attitude of the Ministry.
During a meeting at the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), officials from the Water Resource Department (WRD) claimed that of the 87 TMC (Thousand million cubic feet) live storage of Ujani, 50-60 TMC is flow irrigation to sugarcane in command, accounting for more than 60% of its live storage. The authorised use, however, is only 32 TMC! In addition, there are several sugar factories in the upstream of the Ujani dam, taking water through unauthorised lifts from the backwaters. So, actual water going to sugarcane from Ujani is estimated to be close to 80% or more. This is causing severe water scarcity in the downstream regions, creating severe drinking water crisis.
All of this diversion apparently happens with political support. Of the 30 cabinet ministers in Maharashtra, 13 ministers either own sugar factories, or a substantial share in these. The White Paper on Irrigation Projects proudly boasts that the Ujani Project irrigates 92000 hectares of Sugarcane.
Apart from Ujani, Pune region (Districts Satara, Solapur and Pune), Ahmednagar Region, Aurangabad region and Nanded region, – all of them drought-prone areas – also have a dense concentration of sugar factories, aided by irrigated sugarcane fields in the vicinity.
Sugarcane is increasing in area in drought affected Krishna and Godavari Basins too, commanding maximum share of the irrigation water. This is borne out by the table below, all figures taken from the Maharashtra Irrigation Status report 2009-10 (the latest one available).
Area under main crops in thousand hectares
(canals, groundwater and rivers) ISR 2009-10
Region
Jowar
Wheat
Ground nut
Harbhara
Rice
Oilseed
Sugar-cane
Cotton
Fruits
Pune
221.43
191.85
38.68
52.85
96.96
61.58
315.97
5.77
13.80
Aurangabad
29.38
33.33
5.07
12.68
0.08
2.30
43.30
27.83
5.48
Sugarcane: Lifeline of the political economy of Maharashtra
A Memorandum for Drought Relief sent to the centre from Maharashtra in 2003-04 said that Sugarcane is the “Lifeline of the agro economy of Maharashtra”. However, more than a lifeline of the agro-economy, it appears to be so for the political economy of Maharashtra. Hugely entrenched in sugar politics, the political economy is unable to take any brave and sustainable decisions when it comes to cultivating sugarcane. As experts have pointed out in the past, entire water management of Maharashtra revolves around sugarcane.
The Ujani Dam, sanctioned in 1964 for 40 Crores is still not complete, while the expenses have been pegged at nearly 2000 Crores. Even as the main canal work is incomplete, more and more lift irrigation schemes, link canals, underground tunnels are being planned on this dam, for sugarcane. Incomplete projects, with bad distribution network, which has been the hallmark of the irrigation scam, has aided sugarcane cultivation the most and has resulted in concentration of water in small ‘pockets of prosperity’ amidst drought affected zones and thirsty tail-enders.
Osmanabad collector K.M. Nagzode had written to the state sugar commissioner on 29 November 2012 that Osmanabad “had received only 50% of average rainfall, and water levels in dams are extremely low while ground water hasn’t been replenished and that since a sugar factory typically uses at least one lakh litres of water a day, it would be advisable to suspend crushing and divert the harvest to neighbouring districts”. However, no such orders were given and cane crushing went on. Osmanabad district contributes significantly to sugar production of Maharashtra, with over 25100 hectares of sugarcane, which is the only crop that gets irrigation in this district.
District Collectors have the right to reserve water for drinking in any major, medium and minor projects, when they see the need. However, even when Ujani was reaching zero live storage, such decision was not taken by the Solapur Collector.
Everybody loves a good drought
A Memorandum for drought relief sent by the Maharashtra government to the Centre does not seem to be in the public domain, but the state is reportedly seeking Rs 2500 crore for drought relief. The Memorandum for drought relief, 2003-04 shows that during every drought, we indulge in the same fire- fighting measures of resorting to the Employment Guarantee Scheme, tanker water supply, cattle camps and well-control. Once the drought passes, sugarcane is pushed again.
Currently 3 million farmers and significant number of labourers are involved in sugarcane farming, it is claimed. In reality, even if a million hectares were to be under sugarcane, how can 3 million farmers be involved in sugarcane farming when the average farm size in Maharashtra is 1.45 hectares?
We have neither been able to solve the minimum price for sugarcane lock till now. Farmers have been demanding Rs 4500 per tonne of sugarcane from sugar industries, which have agreed to only Rs 2300/ tonne. In Vidarbha, the situation is even worse with prices at Rs 1500/ tonne. The government has made it clear that it will not interfere in the issue. Many sugar industries did not even pay last year’s dues to farmers. Globally and in Indian markets, sugar prices are going down. Last November, during farmers’ protests for minimum price for sugarcane, two farmers lost their lives. This protest was the strongest in the drought hit region around Ujani Dam.
Instead of hiding behind claims of three million sugarcane farmers, politicians need to ensure that these farmers do not have to suffer the same fate time and again. With climate change, droughts have become a more frequent reality. The only way to tackle and manage droughts is to improve the resilience of the agro-economic system and water management systems in coping with droughts. Encouraging and pushing for sugarcane in chronically drought-affected areas is a poor adaptation measure and only pushes farmers deeper into the vicious cycle of uncertainty, crop failures, and hardships.
Drip Irrigation: A Band-aid solution?
The Maharashtra state government is planning to make it mandatory for sugarcane growers to use drip irrigation systems over the next three years, a move prompted by the drought. “Hence a regulation will make a big difference in the water utilization pattern in the agro-sector,” chief minister, Prithviraj Chavan said in an interview.
Measures like drip Irrigation, sprinkler irrigation, etc, though critical, are incapable of arresting the proliferation of sugarcane, a fundamentally inappropriate crop in drought prone areas. Moreover, despite the relative abundance of sugarcane and heavy subsidies for drip, sugarcane belts have stuck to flood irrigation and have not adopted drip the way Nashik region has for grapes. Of the one million hectares under sugarcane, barely 10% is under drip. Even the Union Agriculture Minister’s constituency has not shown any notable success on this front.
As sugarcane is claiming almost all of irrigation and also domestic water from dams in the drought-affected zones, villagers in Marathwada and Western Maharashtra do not have drinking water; students are missing their exams to attend to cattle at cattle shelters and hospitals have to postpone surgeries for want of water. If at all Maharashtra wants to liberate itself from the shackle of regular droughts, one of the things it must first do is break free from sugarcane, and politicians who push the mirage of sugarcane in the absence of any sustainable efforts towards improving farm livelihoods.
This drought would not have been so severe if Maharashtra had broken the shackles of sugar earlier.⊕
SANDRP 