Ideally the month of June in India is the time when the monsoons should have begun. It's now July and so far we have received scanty rainfall and the same situation prevails all over India however its worse in Northern India.

I am a bit worried as scanty rainfall means less water flowing into the river(s) and conversely less water in the reservoirs/dams. The end result is less water flowing from the dams to the common people. So how will people survive without drinking water. The affluent ones can afford a water tanker however what about people in general. There is a report which states that in the future wars will be fought over water. Scenes of people sparring over water in a town in Madhya Pradesh even leading to the death of a person means that the reality is much closer at our door step than we think.

Our crops are dependent on rainfall and lesser rains would mean that the crop acreage would shrink. Lesser crops implies lesser food grains in the market creating a demand supply gap. Now that as we know leads to rise in the food prices. The food inflation is quite high in India unlike the western countries. I recently bought half kilo gram of Tur Dal (Pulses) from the nearby grocery store and the price of Rs.48 shocked me. Now Dal is one of the essential items for an average Indian. The price of Dal is just one of the symptoms of a larger malaise.

The problem is how do we get out of this vicious cycle. To begin with, we are too much dependent on rain. We don't have water conservation efforts replicated on a national scale. Instead of having a long term approach towards solving the water woes, our short-sighted approach sees us every year literally at the mercy of a good monsoon. One of the side effects of deficiency in monsoons is the shortage in power generation. Adding fuel to the fire of transmission and distribution (popularly known as T&D) losses in the power sector apart from pilferage of power is the free distribution of power to farmers. A truant monsoon can lead to lower generation of power from the hydel projects. At this pace, how do you jump start the economy towards a double digit growth. We say that India is a rising power however when even the basic needs are not met, our dreams will be just that... a mirage.

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