I can’t say about Delhi, but Noida has not experienced such monsoon that is continuing since last four days for many years, bettering even my memory of Bengal’s rain.

Since last few months, the media covered the drought extensively. From the reporters and columnists of the pink papers to the finance minister as well as even the prime minister talked of drought’s adverse effect on the country’s economy and its GDP growth rate. The majority of the country’s districts demanded and got the label of ‘drought affected’. The state governments worked overtime to show the exaggerated intensity of the drought. I was surprised when I heard the police taking control on the deep tube wells in the villages from Bihar as well UP. Farmers had to play hide and seek with police informers to start pumps for saving the paddy crops. It was again unprecedented in the region. I don’t know if it was on instruction of the government, as the government had announced subsidy on diesel for running pumps for keeping the crop alive. How can the government pass on such orders? Was that another source for earning for police?

The government also announced extra fund allocation for NREGA. I don’t know if it helped the affected or the effect. Unfortunately, the panchayats have failed to create the list of permanent assets such as its waterbodies or the irrigation canals passing through its control area that are to be maintained regularly.

But now many part of the country particularly West Bengal, Bihar, and even UP are reporting heavy rain, pretty heavy in many places. The rain god, according to the report, has compensated its shortcomings. The steady showers wiped out the rain deficit making up for the almost dry three months of monsoon. Cities are waterlogged. Some rivers are flooding too. Did the agencies responsible to use NREGA worked on some waterbodies to increase the storage capacity of the rain water or all the water poured by the rain god will go down the drain and wasted? Why can’t NREGA take up the construction and repair of waterbodies as the top priority for each of the water scarce habitations?

Why can’t the central and state governments declare the ancient natural and man-made huge water bodies in different parts of the country as national heritage with extreme penal actions for those working against it? Why are the famous lakes of Udaipur, Bhopal or Hyderabad facing extinction? Will the state government be vigilant against the land mafias such as one reported from Rajarhat Kolkata by Raj K. Modi of the Vedic Village arrested and charged with converting 21 acres of wetland without permission. Unfortunately, even if the court’s judgment asks the plunderers to vacate the wetland, it will not ask them to restore the wetland as it was originally.

The nation must use the opportunity provided by the drought as well as flood and heavy rain to find solutions to mitigate its effect when it again come next time. The one point action plan is to create water storage capacity as much as possible and integrate the maximum possible water harvesting. Through NREGA, it is possible. However, the people at the grassroots level must appreciate it. Provisions of NREGA must not be taken as doles to be distributed to favourite ones.