A train with 50 tankers pulls in late at night, raising a cheer over 300 km away in Latur

[HariPrasad-1]

There is widespread damage to rainwater channels and too much ground water has been drawn already.

The water crisis is everywhere as the natural resources simply cannot support the population.

What we need to do is to Harness the natural resources such as Water and sunlight. If we do that than half of our problem is solved. Once I heard the news that the water sufficient for 3 years of use for saurashtra and kutch flew to see from Narmada within 3 days. If we harness the water properly, we can do with even 1/4th of rain. however we do not have the proper water management.

I have seen the photographs of vilage ralegan siddhi before and after anna's movemet. Dry desert like village turned into lush green garden with appropriate steps of water management.

The dry water scarce village was turned into a picnic spot. This can happen with each and every village . Water is required is an effort.

People pity farmers. Actually i hold them partly responsible. They are lazy and unwilling to use their brain. They have no co ordination and cooperation. If you remember TV program called Saurtashtra ni Jaladhara. It is the story of dry area turned green by the efforts of villagers near my home town. They bought JCB and surveyed the land and build hundreds of ponds and check dams and turned area into a totally green one. This sort of effort is required. However those lazy idiot farmers prefers to suicide rather than make an coordinated effort.

It is very necessary some leadership may emerge from village who work in this area. There are village management institutes but they have not produced the required leadership.

Sawmi Ramdev and patanjali make this movement a mass movement and turn the destiny of the country and farmers in particular.

Yesterday i read the news that one district of Gujarat produced Rs 300 crore of pomegranates. Kutch is a desert district. However they are getting rich by farming. In south Gujarat also, Farmers have palace like bunglows.
Some body need to take the leadership and make some right efforts. If proper steps are taken, it is not at all difficult to turn Vidarbha and other parts of Maharashtra drought free for ever.

 

[Bornubus]

a valid argument i read was, regular tending to these ckt-grounds also takes up water, then whats so special with IPL. even if there's no IPL, the grounds would usually take up water anyway. is it true? i don't watch and follow ckt so dont know very much.

I don't watch cricket either,people are filing PIL on the ground that thousands of lt of water would be wasted on IPL cricket,India is a big country matches can be shifted to elsewhere.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities...-water-for-cricket-pitches/article8440015.ece

 

[HariPrasad-1]

IMO 5 lakh crore can be arranged since Defence budget alone is 50 billion.

Overflowing Rivers becomes a menace in North both especially for fertile agricultural land.

The 5 lakh crore budget of early 2000 would be 20 Lakh crore by now.

However the problem with Chut1ya state government like UP and BIhar is that they are unable to provide electricity connections to thousands of villages till today. What else can they participate in development. Today central government is providing the electricity polls to villages in UP and Bihar though it is a state responsibility. Modi has an ambitious plan to provide Houses to all by 2022. Now how much the center will do while some useless states are using all their money in giving freebies to their selected vote banks.

 

[OneGrimPilgrim]

I don't watch cricket either,people are filing PIL on the ground that thousands of lt of water would be wasted on IPL cricket,India is a big country matches can be shifted to elsewhere.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities...-water-for-cricket-pitches/article8440015.ece

earlier too IPL matches had been shifted to UAE. now can also be done. swimming pools and 'rain dances' have been ordered to remain closed this summer by Maharshtra govt., then why this extravaganza.

 

[HariPrasad-1]

I don't watch cricket either,people are filing PIL on the ground that thousands of lt of water would be wasted on IPL cricket,India is a big country matches can be shifted to elsewhere.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities...-water-for-cricket-pitches/article8440015.ece

Here the question to be asked is whether the water earmarked for latur is used for IPL? Water is used where it is in abundance. It is simply nonsense to argue that if water is scarce in latur than match may not be played in Bombay or pune.

Rather they should say that whatever amount of water used in IPL should be made available to Latur. That will be more logical. They should ask to increase one train to two train water. What they need is a big scale strorage development.

 

[Screambowl]

"Desalinated water typically costs about $2,000 an acre foot -- roughly the amount of water a family of five uses in a year. The cost is about double that of water obtained from building a new reservoir or recycling wastewater, according to a 2013 study in US"

Doubt:
How much money has been spent by irrigation and water departments in Marathwada since independence?

Never mind. Just googled and found about the irrigation scam. 5.4 billions $'s. I have to say, the people got what they voted for.

it will cost 2000 dollars in USA. Like their mars mission but in India it will be five times cheaper. Because electricity is also cheap and labour too.

More over for costal areas and states touching the sea the transportation cost of water will be almost very low.

Planners are bunch of nikamme people. That's the truth. Within 10 Billion dollars all problem of water can be solved easily.


It has laready started...
India
The largest desalination plant in South Asia is the Minjur Desalination Plant near Chennai in India, which produces 36.5 million cubic meters of water per year.[110][111]

A second plant at Nemmeli, Chennai is expected to reach full capacity of 100 million litres of sea-water per day in March 2013

 

[HariPrasad-1]

Kutchha district produces 300 Crore Rs of Pomegranate.

http://www.divyabhaskar.co.in/news-srh/KUT-BUJ-OMC-MAT-latest-bhuj-news-053802-3981481-NOR.html

 

[Bornubus]

FINALLY


http://www.espncricinfo.com/indian-premier-league-2016/content/story/997517.html


Court moves IPL out of Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur in May
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Bal: IPL just a soft target


All IPL 2016 matches scheduled in Maharashtra after April 30 must be moved out of the state, the Bombay High Court has ruled. The ruling came after a Public Interest Litigation questioned the hosting of matches in Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur due to a severe drought in Maharashtra.

The ruling affects 13 matches, including the final which was to be held in Mumbai on May 29. Pune will miss out on six matches, including the Eliminator and Qualifier 2, while no games will be held in Nagpur. The state was earlier scheduled to host 20 matches.

Last week, the court had sought an explanation from the BCCI and the three state associations on why water should be "wasted" on hosting the games when the state faced one of its worst ever droughts. The court later allowed the opening match to be held as scheduled in Mumbai on April 9, and asked the Maharashtra state government and Mumbai's civic body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, to respond on plans to tackle the issue of water shortage. On Tuesday, the court orally asked the BCCI if matches could be shifted out of Pune.

In its defence, the BCCI had stated that less water was used to prepare the ground for an IPL game when compared to an international fixture. The board also stated that it intended to use treated sewage water for ground preparation in Mumbai and Pune. Mumbai Indians and Rising Pune Supergiants, the franchises based in Mumbai and Pune, had proposed to contribute INR 5 crore to the Maharashtra chief minister's drought relief fund and supply 40 lakh litres of water to drought-hit areas at their own cost.

While the BCCI is mulling its next move, IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla has admitted that moving games out of Maharashtra is a logistical problem for the board. He also pointed out that no objections of this kind were raised when Mumbai and Nagpur hosted World T20 matches last month.

"Organising the IPL is a gigantic work. It's not easy. All preparations had been done, completed," Shukla said. "Now shifting the matches will be a problem. So far, we have not got the written order, after we get that, we will study the order and work out an alternative plan. We always respect the court. We need to talk to other franchises. Out of 19 matches in Maharashtra, 13 have to be moved out, we will have to work it out.

"The key problem is water for farmers, which we are trying to find a solution to. We were willing to give water, contribute to the CM's fund. Now shifting matches will be a problem. If matches are to be shifted, where will they be moved, how will they be moved, all these issues are involved. And this comes after nobody raised an issue about the 24 World Twenty20 matches that were held recently.

"Nobody raised these issues for six months. Whatever was required, we were willing to do. In fact, I would like to point out that a lot many other sports and cultural events are going on in Maharashtra, which also use water and they should also help."

Anurag Thakur, the BCCI secretary, said there was an attempt to create negativity over issues: "We are not using drinking water, we have said that we will use treated sewage water only. How many swimming pools of 5 star hotels have been shut? Have people stopped watering their lawns? There is an attempt to create negativity on every issue these days. IPL was to use 0.00038% of water so that shows the requirement was not much."

Ness Wadia, co-owner of the Kings XI Punjab franchise, welcomed the order. Kings XI were scheduled to play three home matches in Nagpur between May 7 and 15, apart from games in Mumbai and Pune on May 13 and 21, respectively. "I'm very happy with this, we welcome this decision," he said.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

 

[cannonfodder]

Why Latur Crisis Is A Man-Made Misery And How Policies Can Avoid Such A Situation

Some people have been calling the scarcity in drinking water in Latur a result of two consecutive droughts. This is not true. This article will show why such a claim is not entirely correct.

The drought situation in Maharashtra is serious. The state has officially declared more than half its villages drought affected. Media is replete with many competing stories about how people are suffering with little water.

Two main causes

Firstly, the cropping pattern and the choice of the crop. Sugarcane is about 7 percent of Maharashtra’s agricultural produce, but it consumes 700 times more water than other crops. Let us dwell on another fact. In Marathwada, out of 10.5 lakh hectare irrigation potential only 4.5 lakh hectare is irrigated area. Nearly 2.5 lakh hectare of this land is used for sugarcane. Further, when there is no water in the reservoir, all sugarcane is dependent on ground water. If status quo continues than situation will turn worse.

Then, the inability to initiate a regulatory environment for efficient water governance is the next culprit. The state has Maharashtra Irrigation Act 1976 to regulate water governance, but unfortunately no rules have been framed in the last 40 years.

The crisis in Marathwada

Though, it is true that five years of excessive drought and occasional hail storm has taken a toll on Marathwada, in particular Latur. However, malafide or lopsided policies in the distribution of water resources is to be blamed.

As per research by a prominent water activist Vijay Diwan, 100 litre of water per person per day is needed in Latur. This roughly amounts to 50 MLitre/day. Going back to government data, it needs to be pointed that Dhanegar reservoir was selected as a permanent resource of water.

The storage volume of Dhanegar reservoir is 250 million cubic metres. With this capacity it can easily supply water to Latur for long. However, water which was meant for Latur was supplied to fulfill needs of 50,000 hectare sugar cultivation around Dhanegar. Even today, five big sugar factories suck up to 1,400 litres of water for sugar cultivation everyday from Dhanegar dam. This practice has left Latur thirsty and parched.

To overcome such a situation, we need to promote a system which encourages rainfall crops like pulses and oilseeds. This will also save thousands of crores of foreign exchange spent on importing them.

To change political economy in favour of pulses (and other rain fed crops that do not absorb so much water) the lobby of factories behind sugarcane promotion needs to be dismantled gradually. To achieve this the administration needs to give procurement guarantee of pulses, more profits to crops other than sugarcane as incentives to move away from sugarcane cultivation. This shift will not be difficult as 85 percent of Maharashtra is rain fed agriculture. The shift towards rain fed can be catalyzed by promoting value addition.

Lastly, participative water governance with more accountability and greater transparency can make implementation of above policy decisions deliver outcomes.

Grave problems also have solutions

It is to be noted that drinking water needs are not much. Solapur, which is one of the worst drought affected districts in Maharashtra has been able to meet its drinking water needs because of multi-pronged grassroot steps like securing water resources and pipeline extension under the leadership of the district administration. These measures in principle should be attempted in other districts also.

There is a perennial principle in economics that a crisis should not be wasted. Let us learn from our mistakes so that our citizens need not encounter this grave crisis which is endangering their survival in a modern India.
http://swarajyamag.com/ideas/why-la...y-and-how-policies-can-avoid-such-a-situation
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Having ancestral home from marathwada, I know that many farmers prefer cash crops like sugarcane and this has led to depleting ground water reserves(I don't have much data to prove but know this from past conversations with relatives) Mah should encourage farmers to go away from crops needing high water resources and should introduce agricultural planning according to water availability somewhat like Gujrat did.

 

[abingdonboy]

Man, this is a huge project requiring lakhs of crore and huge planning and survey. Vajpayee had constituted a team of river linking and it was supposed to be completed by 2016 at a cost of 5 LAKH crore. Suresh prabhu was the head. Congress dismantled the team. BJP now has this in their agenda. They will start the work once they have some money.

I think we must take a loan from Japan at a very low interest rate and start the project.

Once they have the money? This is a crisis and the GoI have the money let us not kid outselves.

Any actual progress on the river linking project in the past 23 months?

 

[HariPrasad-1]

I do not know but it is high on modi's agenda. He has done that in Gujarat and certainly do that in center as well. But he has many challenges. A lots of work need to be done without money. As modi does, he will cut short non planned expenditure and boost planned expenditure. For that he need some time. he has an agenda to reform railway, civil aviation, road, defense and education and agriculture sector. He is moving ahead. Let us wait for a while. He is launching schemes one by one.

Once they have the money? This is a crisis and the GoI have the money let us not kid outselves.

Any actual progress on the river linking project in the past 23 months?

 

[HariPrasad-1]

Yesterday I watched a news on Zee TV. In Raipur district, a huge work is going on for water resource planning. The whole managera work is focused on building wells and small ponds. News said that it can be a next model of water resource management People of villages are working hard to build water conservation facilities near villages.

 

[Navnit Kundu]

a valid argument i read was, regular tending to these ckt-grounds also takes up water, then whats so special with IPL. even if there's no IPL, the grounds would usually take up water anyway. is it true? i don't watch and follow ckt so dont know very much.

This is a classic case of how politics works in India. The real problem is not the cricket matches, although I am happy that they were shifted out after the arrogant responses of the owners of IPL franchise. The amount of water spent on pitches, and playgrounds doesn't even compare to the needs of the region which is parched, and yet the politicians are using these as scapegoats to divert public anger. I'd read a response from an IAS officer on another forum where someone had asked him, in simple terms, how it will help Latur if people from metro cities spent less water and the officer simply said it wont. Both get water from different water sources, there is no shared reservoir or infrastructure which transports water to these areas and therefore if you don't flush your toilet today doesn't mean that that 5 liter water will magically get transported to Latur, as is being publicized by good-for-nothing do gooders on Facebook who are writing posts shaming people from urban areas for the water problem in Latur and making it look like a case of the rich, selfish urbanites neglecting their rural farmer brethren. This is being done deliberately to start a class war between rural and urban people while the real problem lies elsewhere. It's not a case of urbanites ignoring farmers, it's a case of rich farmers ignoring poor farmers. Farmers (like Sharad Pawar) who have become billionaires by growing money-making crops like sugar cane have got a monopoly on the water supply system in the entire state. They have diverted all the water to their own sugarcane farms and sugar refining industries, and left the other types of farmers (grains, pulses) high and dry. Instead of admitting that folly, these rich farmers have created a myth in the minds of simpletons claiming that it is the selfish urbanites who are sucking all the water dry whereas the urbanites are themselves living in troubled conditions in 10X12 ft rooms in slums with just one hour water supply daily. But as long as the rural folk keep blaming the so called 'rich, evil, selfish urban parasites' the rich farmers with political clout can continue sucking their own sugarcanes. Pun intended.

All of this is being played out because the elites in politics, media, industrialists know that the simpletons in India lack the critical thinking to do a comparative analysis of the problem. A few thousand liters spent on pitches doesn't even compare to the crores of crores of crores of liters of water deficit that Latur faces. People don't understand the difference between liter, cubic meter, cusecs, metric tons, and other measurements. Some units measure volume, others measure water flow, others measure pressure, none of them are the same. The media is deliberately using each of them interchangeably to confuse the masses, despite all of them being different unites of measurements altogether. Not a single drop is going to reach Latur even if you turn off water supply to the cities tomorrow. These two constituencies simply have different water sources and different supply infrastructure. Latur can have water immediately if the sugar barons give up their monopoly over the water supply. But no one wants you to talk about that. Keep blaming evil urbanites for flushing 5L down the drain.

Btw, if you want to stop wastage of water you can simply use artificial turf; No watering required. Many sports like hockey and baseball use these fake lawns. These are patches of plastic grass which come in the shape of floor tiles, and you can simply interlink as many of them as you want to cover your field. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_turf

It STILL has no connection with the Latur problem, though. Sugar barons and no one else is to blame for this crisis. I request rural folk not to blame urbanites for every problem like Pakistanis and Bangladeshis blame Indians for everything, and I request city folk to not get trapped in a self-loathing circle-jerk set up by Sharad Pawar's gang. We can show solidarity out of empathy without having to take the blame for crimes we haven't committed.

 

[Mikesingh]

Rs 1500 crores for supplying water to villages in Maharashtra and Telangana are still lying unused since the past one year!! WTF were these bloody bureaucrats and politicians doing till now? Poodle-faking and sitting on their asses in AC offices busy wheeling and dealing and making strategies for making a fast buck.

Idiots! They only wake up when the media starts making a noise. Zero accountability. They need to be sacked!

 

[cannonfodder]

Adding to this excellent post, many co-operative sugar factories are owned by state politicians. Politicians will probably run some campaign how Vidharbha development and water crisis is neglected because of Mumbai/Pune Urban areas to divert attention.

If Fadnavis has some mettle, he needs to convey this bitter truth to farmers and encourage different profitable crop pattern. Modi has done similar stuff and it is possible using Land health card combined with water usage analysis. With irregular monsoons, things are only gonna get tougher for Mah.

Most of the sugar factories are owned or controlled by state politicians – as per news reports, out of the 30 cabinet ministers, 10 of them either own or control sugar factories.
"¢ In 2012-2013 itself, the rainfall was far below average in Marathwada, where one-third of the sugarcane factories are located – drought was declared, worse than the 1972 one.

http://www.thenewsminute.com/stories/222

Farmers (like Sharad Pawar) who have become billionaires by growing money-making crops like sugar cane have got a monopoly on the water supply system in the entire state. They have diverted all the water to their own sugarcane farms and sugar refining industries, and left the other types of farmers (grains, pulses) high and dry. Instead of admitting that folly, these rich farmers have created a myth in the minds of simpletons claiming that it is the selfish urbanites who are sucking all the water dry whereas the urbanites are themselves living in troubled conditions in 10X12 ft rooms in slums with just one hour water supply daily. But as long as the rural folk keep blaming the so called 'rich, evil, selfish urban parasites' the rich farmers with political clout can continue sucking their own sugarcanes. Pun intended.

 

[OneGrimPilgrim]

We can show solidarity out of empathy without having to take the blame for crimes we haven't committed.

we have such a turf in front of our home.
fortunately those i have seen protesting the matches in Maha harboured no delusions about ckt-water being diverted to Marathwada but exactly out of empathy and solidarity.
IIRC in Raipur distt. under MNREGA, the Govt. has rallied villagefolk for creation of ponds and the work's going on in full swing.

 

[Screambowl]

beef production requires 16.2 times more water than wheat production. And Fresh Water which is.

This is why countries in EU rather import beef from China or India. Because they do not want to waste their water and keep it for only household use basically.

 

[Screambowl]

Adding to this excellent post, many co-operative sugar factories are owned by state politicians. Politicians will probably run some campaign how Vidharbha development and water crisis is neglected because of Mumbai/Pune Urban areas to divert attention.

If Fadnavis has some mettle, he needs to convey this bitter truth to farmers and encourage different profitable crop pattern. Modi has done similar stuff and it is possible using Land health card combined with water usage analysis. With irregular monsoons, things are only gonna get tougher for Mah.



http://www.thenewsminute.com/stories/222

The problem is in the seed. Specialy wheat and pulses which are hybrid. They produce good quantity of crop but then the residue seeds from crop cannot be used for sowing as they lack potential.

More over these seeds are more responsible for making the land barren.

As the hybrid vigor gets lost when seeds are reproduced, farmers have to buy new seeds regularly to avoid yield losses
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.522.1482&rep=rep1&type=pdf


this is the basic reason of drought and suicide of farmers.

 

[OneGrimPilgrim]

beef production requires 16.2 times more water than wheat production. And Fresh Water which is.

This is why countries in EU rather import beef from China or India. Because they do not want to waste their water and keep it for only household use basically.

old saga of chaalaak lomad & ch**ia champak.

 

[charlie]

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