Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Rain God smiles this year' that was published in Newsband

Rain God smiles this year

This time the monsoon has been good. It has rained copiously. The country has received much more rain than usual. After last year’s poor monsoon, the plentiful rains have aided the planting of this year’s kharif crops, improved water storage in reservoirs and helped recharge badly depleted, underground aquifers. Only Uttarakhand received eightfold more rain than it typically gets, the deluge was too much.

With this month’s heavy rains, flooding has been reported from other parts of the country too. The country as a whole has thus far got good rain. It is great as compared to last year when there was a considerable shortfall.

Good rains this month do not necessarily mean that the rest of the rainy season will be just as bountiful. On the whole, the monsoon shows signs of turning out well this year.

There should be rainwater harvesting and conserving and maximizing of the use of rainwater done.

However, it's still near-drought in Chennai. Here, every family spends at least Rs 3000 per month to get tanker water. At least now, the Southern states should come together, form a common governing council, which will redistribute surplus water among these states, irrespective of political affinities, caste or social status.

The problem relating to severe water shortage in Maharashtra seems to be getting solved. Let’s hope that this early spurt in rains doesn’t fizzle out.

Everyone wants a good monsoon even when we know we are at the mercy of nature for our life. Changing natural conditions have always kept the most evolved civilizations in danger of becoming extinct.

Good monsoon brings smile to all – may they be farmers, planners, economists, political leaders or Aam Admi. But our strategy must be how best to harness and use this precious resource. We must preserve, maintain our water ponds/tanks so that they receive rain water which we can use throughout the year to quench our thirst besides irrigation and aqua culture. India should seriously ponder as to what strategy we have to adopt if more rainfall/ deficit rains to sustain our population.

Thus we should make the best of whatever rainfall we receive during monsoon.