-Livemint.com Erratic monsoon rains and skewed farm incentives have led to the growing groundwater crisis, impacting farm incomes and availability of drinking water India’s monsoon provides relief from oppressive heat but, more importantly, it provides sustenance for millions. A timely and sufficient monsoon is a critical input for farmers but increasingly, because of climate change, the monsoon is becoming less reliable. Exacerbating this is a set of policies which encourage water wastage,...
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Data shows below-normal water storage in India's 72 of 100 major reservoirs
-PTI The scenario is particularly worrying in the states of Gujarat and Maharashtra, according to Central Water Commission data With the four-month rainy season nearly halfway through, 72 of the 100 major water reservoirs in the country have reported water storage which is 80 per cent or below of normal, the Central Water Commission data shows. According to the data, until July 25, the basin storage position is deficient in major rivers like...
More »Monsoon picks up speed, gives boost to kharif sowing -Amit Bhattacharya
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: After a dry June, monsoon has made a great start in July. Average countrywide rainfall in the first 11 days of the month has been 24% above normal, which has helped reduce the overall monsoon deficit to almost a third, from 33% at the end of June to 12%. In what should boost sowing of kharif crops, all regions of the country, except the south, have...
More »Agricultural reforms and urban accountability key to water management -Joydeep Gupta
-TheThirdPole.net Between wasteful flood irrigation, free electricity to farmers, and skewed market incentives, agriculture is a mess; while lack of accountability creates urban water problems in South Asia The 2019 South Asian summer monsoon is late, slow and inadequate so far. If it makes up somewhat for lost time, those 55% of Indian farmers who do not get irrigation water will still suffer, but there is a chance that reservoirs may fill...
More »How the Modi government dismantled India's main defence against drought -Aarefa Johari & Nithya Subramanian
-Scroll.in From water conservation, the focus has shifted to farm irrigation. At the height of the June summer in Madhya Pradesh, Mannubai Chamariya heaved boulders from the banks of a dry stream to a site where other workers arranged them in a tiled wall, filling the gaps with cement. The work was arduous but Chamariya and the others did not mind it. They were building a small check dam in the hope that it...
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