Strangely, all that is needed to help farmers in a poor monsoon is available
The chances that India will get a normal monsoon this year are poor. In its June forecast, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) predicted a less than normal monsoon at 88% of its Long Period Average (LPA). The IMD estimated the probability of a deficient or a below normal monsoon to be 93%. The country’s farmers are the ones who often get worst hit in a drought. The government’s response in such situations is usually inefficient but in case there is a poor monsoon this year, then the reasons for not helping farmers will be little more than excuses. And the government alone will not be responsible for this failure.
While these numbers are being disputed by Skymet, a private weather service forecaster, the Union government has lost no time in claiming that it is ready with contingency plans for meeting the situation in close to 600 of 676 districts in the country.
The usual recipe for meeting challenges in a drought year is a combination of some relief money for farmers coupled with cheap diesel and some drought-resistant seed varieties. This does not get very far: the distribution of relief in any natural calamity in India—be it a drought or a flood—is marred by corruption or is even heartless. It is a painful sight to see farmers brandishing cheques with princely sums of less than Rs.100 for damage relief per acre of land.
In the last one decade, a number of tools have been developed that could have enabled the government to reach virtually every farmer in every village and then help him out. The possibilities offered by Aadhaar numbers linked to bank accounts are immense. These could have been used to transfer respectable sums of money to weather-hit farmers. This could have enabled the Union government to bypass a thick, parasitical chain of intermediaries—official and political—to reach the affected farmers directly. As it stands currently, through a series of judicial orders and administrative laxity, the linking of bank accounts with Aadhaar is an incomplete task. The Supreme Court in one order has said that it was not necessary to have an Aadhaar number to avail of benefits from the government. It is in a drought-like situation that a bank account-Aadhaar combination can prove to be a formidable tool to help the needy. India’s urban elite is, however, suspicious of such ideas and has put in sufficient roadblocks in the spread of Aadhaar. Our farmers are the silent victims of such elitism.
The Narendra Modi government has another ambitious scheme to help farmers: there are plans to ensure that incomes of farmers don’t fall below a certain level. Details of this income-linked farm insurance scheme are still being worked out. Roughly, the plan is to bridge the gap between a farmer’s income in a normal season, when he is able to sell his crop, and a drought or a bad monsoon situation, when he loses income due to a poor crop. The trouble, once again, is the inability of the government to reach every farmer. Due to outdated land surveys or, in many cases, non-existent ones, only average losses can be imputed. Relief requires fine-grained cadastral surveys and India has the technological wherewithal to do that. A combination of high-resolution satellite imagery and local surveys using drones can extend the reach of the government to almost every farmer. But this takes time. These surveys have to be continuous and cannot be merely a drought-year exercise.
In a bygone age, and that too under a colonial government, India had up-to-date land records. A very large part of the British regime in India was to extract land revenue—the money spinner that helped run the empire—but the by-product was the ability of the raj to reach the farmer. Independent India put tools such as land records and cadastral surveys to disuse. It should not surprise anyone that much is done in the name of rural poor and India’s farmers while they get very little.
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