Why India's solar push could kill the livelihood of pastoral communities

Experts working on just transition to renewable energy believe that specific laws are needed to protect these communities.

Business Standard : The parched brown of the land in Charanka village in north-west Gujarat, around 50 km from India’s border with Pakistan, seemed endless. In peak summer, during one of the worst droughts to hit the region in 30 years, it seems devoid of all life--even doughty bush plants have lost most leaves. Cyclone Vayu, that hit the Gujarat coast in June 2019, did little to revive the district of Patan.

This perhaps explains why the official website of the Gujarat Power Corporation Limited describes the 5,384 acres across which the Charanka solar park is spread as “unused” land. A project map available at the park’s office differs from this assessment--of the 5,417 acres, close to 2,000 acres are under cultivation, it showed. The rest, as per the map, is “government land”.

The villagers were livid at these labels. “What do they mean that the land is unused and that it belongs to the government?” asked Raku Ben, a livestock rearer. “We use it for grazing livestock, and our livelihood depends on this land. It doesn’t belong to anyone, it belongs to everyone.”

The solar park project launched in December 2010, has been functional since April 2012. It sits on what used to be the pasture for the region’s livestock herders, called maldharis. They have traditionally never owned the land where their animals graze but it is critical for their livelihood. The maldharis were once a nomadic community but some have opted to settle down.

These factors are not reflected in the state’s latest solar power policy of 2015 or the Gujarat Wind-Solar Hybrid Power Policy of 2018. The words “compensation” or “livelihoods” do not figure anywhere in the solar power policy.

Having lost access to the grazing lands, maldharis can no longer rear goats, sheep, cows or buffaloes. And the forest department denies them entry to other fertile patches in the region.

“As a result, the once self-sustaining and independent community has now been reduced to doing daily-wage labour in either agricultural fields in neighbouring villages or working as cleaners in the solar park,” said Anu Verma, the focal person in India for the South Asia Pastoralist Alliance, a network that advocates pro-pastoralist policies on commons lands, livestock, food and environment.

Australia imposes first water restrictions in decade amid severe drought

The New South Wales government said the greater Sydney region water catchments were experiencing some of the lowest flows since the 1940s, and that the restrictions would be enforced from next week.

Sydney on Tuesday announced its first major water restrictions in a decade, putting limits on homes and businesses amid a record-breaking drought.

The New South Wales government said the greater Sydney region water catchments were experiencing some of the lowest flows since the 1940s, and that the restrictions would be enforced from next week.

"Regional NSW has been experiencing a record drought," the southeastern state's minister for water Melinda Pavey said in a statement.

"Water restrictions in Sydney mean that households across NSW are doing their bit to conserve water," she added.

People in Sydney can be fined up to A$220 ($150) or businesses up to A$550 for leaving a hose running or using a sprinkler system to water their gardens.

Australia sweated through its hottest-ever summer from last December to February.

The country's water management was a hot-button issue in the recent election following mass fish kills in the Murray-Darling River system, which authorities blamed on low water flow and oxygen levels.

Scientists said the severe drought plaguing inland eastern Australia had contributed to the deaths.

Australia is no stranger to extreme weather patterns, with bushfires, floods and drought often occurring during the summer months.

Sydney last had water restrictions in place in 2009, when all major cities imposed usage caps amid a severe drought, which had lasted for more than a decade in some parts of the country.

Business Standard

$1 bn spent on Rajasthan water projects, just 20% of Barmer is irrigated

Just 20% of Barmer's farms are irrigated, primarily with tube-wells (63.73%), and some with open wells and canals.

It was March 2019, and Pabusari village in Barmer district in western Rajasthan was parched. Another year of bad monsoon--the fifth--had failed 36-year-old farmer Hariram Meghwal, leaving him with no option but to migrate in search of work to ensure his family's survival.

Meghwal had spent Rs 30,000 on sowing bajra (pearl millet), guar (cluster beans) and moong (green gram) on his six-hectare farm, but drought over successive years had laid it to waste.

Pabusari, about 90 km from the district headquarters, was among the 2,741 villages of Barmer’s total 2,775 to be declared ‘drought-hit’ by the Barmer district administration in 2018, based on a crop assessment report for the last kharif (winter cropping) season.

Meghwal, now working as a driver in Barmer city, said repeated droughts, with the resultant crop damage and financial burden, had spelt doom for farmers across Barmer, particularly as they had received no government support such as alternative employment, fair crop insurance payouts, or timely completion of irrigation projects.

With more than 40% of India’s land area facing a drought and pre-monsoon rains during March and April having fallen short by 27%, this is the fifth story in our series on drought, and has been reported from Rajasthan.

The previous stories can be read here, here, here and here. As in other drought-hit parts of the country, prolonged drought in Barmer and other parts of western Rajasthan is forcing farmers to abandon their fields to migrate to cities in search of work and sustenance. There is little help from the government, either in terms of immediate relief or long-term efforts such as completion of irrigation projects on time, farmers told IndiaSpend.

Many farmers we spoke to said since no party in government has been able to ameliorate farm distress, in the ongoing general elections, they would vote by caste or community ties. “We have been facing drought for a long time. When there is no crop, do such promises matter?” said farmer Prahlad Ram of Gadara Road area, now a daily-wage worker, of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise to double farmer income by 2022.

Business Standard

42% of India's land area under drought, 500 mn people severely affected

42% India's Land Area Under Drought, Worsening Farm Distress In Election Year.

Business Standard : About 42% of India’s land area is facing drought, with 6% exceptionally dry--four times the spatial extent of drought last year, according to data for the week ending March 26, 2019, from the Drought Early Warning System (DEWS), a real-time drought monitoring platform.

Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, parts of the North-East, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Telangana are the worst hit. These states are home to 500 million people, almost 40% of the country’s population.

While the central government has not declared drought anywhere so far, the state governments of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha and Rajasthan have declared many of their districts as drought-hit.

“Before monsoon, which is still far away, the next two or three months are going to be difficult in many of these regions,” Vimal Mishra, associate professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Gandhinagar, and the developer of DEWS, told IndiaSpend.

Failed monsoon rains are the primary reason for the current situation. The North-East monsoon, also known as ‘post-monsoon rainfall’ (October-December) that provides 10-20% of India’s rainfall, was deficient by 44% in 2018 from the long-term normal of 127.2 mm, as per data from the India Meteorological Department (IMD). This compounded the rainfall deficit in the South-West (SW) monsoon (June-September) that provides 80% of India’s rainfall, which fell short by 9.4% in 2018--close to the 10% deficit range when the IMD declares a drought.

India has experienced widespread drought every year since 2015, Mishra said, with the exception of 2017. As the El Nino--the unusual warming of the equatorial Pacific Ocean that makes Indian summers warmer and reduces rainfall--looms over the 2019 SW monsoon, pre-monsoon showers (March-May) this year have also been deficient. India has received 36% less rainfall than the long-term average between March 1 and March 28, 2019, as per IMD data. The southern peninsular region recorded the lowest, a deficit greater than 60%.

Lower rainfall has reduced water levels in reservoirs across the country. The amount of water available in the country’s 91 major reservoirs has gone down 32 percentage points over five months to March 22, 2019. In 31 reservoirs of southern states, water level has gone down by 36 percentage points over five months.

The drought could further worsen farm distress, exacerbate groundwater extraction, increase migration from rural to urban areas, and further inflame water conflicts between states and between farms, cities and industries.

Despite a 'normal' monsoon, possibility of drought looms over 251 districts

In 11 states and UTs, including Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, 50% or more districts experienced deficient to "large deficient" rainfall, as per an analysis.

The possibility of a drought looms over 251 districts of India, mainly in the east, northeast and south, according to an IndiaSpend analysis of rainfall data for 2018.

Karnataka declared 23 out of its total 30 districts drought-hit due to deficient rainfall, and Andhra Pradesh announced that 274 blocks in six districts were ‘severe drought hit’. With Jaisalmer and Barmer districts getting less than 60% of normal rains, western Rajasthan is experiencing a dry spell after a decade. The Marathwada and Vidarbha regions of Maharashtra are faced with a drought-like situation.

With three days left for September 30, 2018, the official departure of the ongoing southwest monsoon, this year could likely be a “normal” monsoon year. The cumulative rainfall over the country over 117 days since the beginning of the monsoon on June 1, 2018, was -9% of the long term average, according to the latest weekly analysis of the India meteorological department (IMD) published on September 26, 2018. The rainfall was deficient or -10% by September 19, the preceding week.(Business Standard)

The southwest monsoon accounts for 70% of India’s annual rainfall and is important for its agricultural economy, which is valued at Rs 18 trillion ($250 billion in 2016), or 11% of its gross domestic product (GDP).

The IMD categorises monsoon rainfall as “deficient” at a state or a district level when it receives 20%-59% less rainfall than the long-term average and as "large deficient" when it is 60%-99% less. A deficient monsoon year is when the cumulative rainfall across the country remains -10% or above, once called an ‘All India Drought Year’.

Rainfall in 251 districts--nearly 37% of India’s districts--remained deficient to "large deficient" till the week ending September 26, 2018. In 11 states and union territories (UTs), including Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, 50% or more districts experienced deficient to "large deficient" rainfall, as per our analysis.

“Let us wait for the monsoon to end,” D Shivanand Pai, head of the climatic prediction group at the India Meteorological Department, Pune, told IndiaSpend. “Rainfall-deficient regions in the peninsula may receive more rainfall in the remaining days, which would improve over rainfall figures.”

If the overall rainfall nationwide drops by 1% more over the remaining three days of September 2018, it could likely be the sixth monsoon drought of the century, following 2002, 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2015....Read More

23 mn homes in villages still without power, 17% don't have drinking water

The first mobile phone call in India was made in 1995; now, 23 years later, 43,000-odd inhabited villages do not have mobiles services.

Up to 23 million households (in over 292,000 villages) without electricity; 7% (43,000) villages without mobile services; 17% rural habitations without clean drinking water; 25% of 14- to 18-year-olds (nearly 88 million) in rural areas cannot read basic text in own language.

These data reflect those left out of India’s growth story in the country’s rural areas, home to 833 million or 69% of the population, according to various data sets analysed by IndiaSpend.

As India’s economy grew seven-fold over 25 years to Rs 121.9 lakh crore ($1.8 trillion) in 2016-17, moving to the world’s fifth largest over this period, per capita income increased more than four times–from Rs 15,766 to Rs 82,269–during the same period.

Of 640,932 villages in India (597,608 inhabited and 43,324 uninhabited), all inhabited villages have been electrified–according to the government, although this is unverified–but over 23 million households in rural areas are without electricity.

Of more than 219 million rural households, 195 million, or 89%, have been electrified, official data show.

Of 23 million rural households to be electrified, Uttar Pradesh leads the list with over 12 million households, followed by Assam (1.9 million) and Odisha (1.8 million), as on August 22, 2018.

As many as 18,374 Indian villages got electricity over three years to 2018, but in no more than 8%, or 1,425 villages, do all households have electricity, according to the government’s GARV dashboard.

The first mobile phone call in India was made in 1995; now, 23 years later, 43,000-odd inhabited villages do not have mobiles services as on July 27, 2018, according to government data.

Odisha has the most villages (9,940) without mobile services, followed by Maharashtra (6,117) and Madhya Pradesh (5,558).

While mobile phone ownership is increasing, many rural inhabitants still struggle to access electricity for simple daily tasks–such as charging a phone–IndiaSpend reported on May 17, 2018.

Of 1.7 million rural habitations, over 289,000 habitations, or nearly 17%, have only partial access to clean drinking water (getting at least 40 litre per capita per day), according to an August 8, 2018 reply to the Lok Sabha (lower house of Parliament): and 62,582 habitations have water that is “quality affected” or contaminated.

Article Source BS