BLEAK HOUSE

North Bengal continues to reel under the constraints of a drought-like situation. Thousands of farmers are expected to suffer substantial losses and in this grim scenario, writes Manas R Bannerjee, Malda is no exception

VILLAGERS hoping to propitiate the rain gods and end a dry spell recently went through the process of marrying off couples of toads in a traditional Hindu ceremony in the northern part of West Bengal. Their objective was to gain blessings so as to be able to transplant the aman crop and jute retting — but there was no rain in July and August.Officials fear that the situation is going to get far worse if the region does not receive sufficient rain. The state government, on its part, has finally declared the region hit by a “drought-like situation”, that continues to prevail, particularly in four districts — Malda, North and South Dinajpur and some other places in North Bengal. A similar situation plagues Assam where the chief minister is trying hard to draw Central government’s attention to declaring the state drought hit, considering the plight of thousands of farmers. It has also been reported that the northern part of Bihar is facing a drought-like situation.Elsewhere, at least 18 million people have been affected by China’s worst drought in 50 years, according to the state news agency, Xinhua. There has been no rain for more than 70 days, and two-thirds of the rivers have dried up. Residents in some mountain villages have to walk up to two kilometres to get water and at least one person is said to have died from heatstroke. The drought, Xinhua said, has caused economic losses of 11.74 billion yuan.In Malda, Principal Agriculture Officer G Ahmed said, “We are running with 400 mm shortfall of rain in August till date. This for the first time in the last 10 years that we are facing such a drought-like situation in North Bengal areas.“Farmers could not transplant aman paddy crop in more than 50 per cent areas identified for its cultivation. And we are facing a new threat from failing to save below 40 per cent areas where the farmers transplanted aman crop, owing to a lack of rain water.“The estimated loss of rice production in Malda is nearly Rs 90 crore till last Monday and it may go up if this drought-like situation continues,” he claimed. The estimated loss of the aman crop is the same in five districts in North Bengal, including Jalpaiguri and part of Darjeeling, and the total figure may be more than Rs 800 crore at least, one official said. Marginal farmers in Malda’s Barind belt comprising Habibpur, Bamongola and Gazole blocks could not cultivate one-forth of their targeted lands and they are facing a crisis to meet loans taken and accruing interest for investment at the initial stage, sources said. On the other hand, the northern part of Malda district is also facing a problem of jute retting owing to lack of rain water in wet lands and the estimated loss on this front is also nearly Rs 50 crore. The authorities also declared seven days’ holiday for all primary schools from 21 August owing to the drought-like situation in North Bengal districts. According to a report by the District Magistrate, farmers have been able to cover only 23 per cent production of jute plants for retting and are waiting for rain for the rest. When the estimated loss of agriculture production in one district is over Rs 100 crore, the government has reportedly allotted over Rs 45 crore for North Bengal’s districts to combat the drought-like situation. Officials said that the allotment had been estimated for providing free water supply to the farmers through the agri-irrigation department and providing mini kits for free distribution of seeds and fertilisers to farmers via the agriculture department. Though the government has cancelled leave of all staff in the agri-irrigation and agri-mech departments to be able to provide water to farmers, department officials are facing another crisis — how to revive the defunct units of river lifting irrigation schemes and deep tubewells inside and outside the commendable areas. Due to rivers changing their course and because of insufficient water in these rivers at present, many river lifting schemes for irrigation have been rendered defunct in this region, official sources said. Agri-irrigation departmental officials have claimed at least Rs 2 lakh for each water supply installation to be able to procure diesel for deep tubewells outside the commendable areas. Anil Kumar Nag, executive engineer of Agri-Mech Division-I, said, “We are supplying water to the farmers free of cost to combat the drought-like situation. We have demanded expenses but at present we are managing from our old stock to revive the defunct projects.”In North Dinajpur, two persons were reported to have died of sunstroke from standing in a queue of applicants for water outside the office of the agriculture development officer. Now for the twist in the tail: local experts fear a flood-like situation in the last week of September. They said, “Nature will make up its rainfall on an average at any time in the last week of September.”Interestingly, flood-prone Malda district, located on the left bank of the Ganges, has recorded a 23.48-metre water level in the Ganges — the highest till date (but far below the danger level), because of the lack of rain in northern parts of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Nepal.

N B Extra , Published on 25 Aug , 2006