Ravi Speaks:
This Year Rains & Devastation
Caused Till Now!
This year the rains started slightly a few days late from the Southwestern side. I mean the South-West Monsoon. They say it has been a good rain so far. This, by all means, is very happy news and this would, to a great extent help the country to cover up on the front of damages caused because of Pandemic and unusual happenings in the form of natural calamities during the same time.
According to the India Meteorological Department’s latest release: –
“As per most parameters, we expect monsoon rains to be normal in August and September this year,” Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, Director General of India Meteorological Department (IMD), told a news conference.
The IMD defines average, or normal, rainfall as between 96% and 104% of a 50-year average of 88 cms (34 inches) for the four-month season beginning in June. In August, monsoon rains are likely to be “below normal to normal” in the central region, Mohapatra said, where soybean and cotton are grown. Farmers generally start planting rice, corn, cotton, soybeans, sugarcane, and peanuts, among other crops, from June 1, when monsoon rains typically arrive in India. Sowing usually lasts until July or early August.
After lashing the southernmost Kerala coast on June 3, the monsoon spread to two-thirds of India by the end of the first half of the month, nearly 15 days earlier than expected. And then it tapered off in the third week of June. While monsoon rains were still 10% above average in June, they turned 7% below average in July. Overall rains have been 1% below average so far in the season that began in June.
Further as per the latest update from IMD:-
“The cumulative rainfall during this year’s Southwest Monsoon season till June 21 has been exceeded by about 37 percentabove Long Period Average (LPA),” the weather the department said in a statement. It said that northwest India has received 71.3 mm rainfall against the normal 40.6 mm rainfall during the period, a surplus of 76 percent. Central India has registered 145.8 mm rainfall against the normal of 92.2 mm, an increase of 58 percent. The southern peninsula has received 133.6 mm rainfall, which is 24 percent more than normal, while east and northeast India witnessed 253.9 mm rainfall against the normal of 224.8 mm during the period.
After arriving two days late in Kerala, the monsoon raced across the country, covering eastern, central, and adjoining northwest India 7 to 10 days earlier than normal, according to the IMD.
There was one time when we rested assured that the heavy good rains in one season would help the country’s economic growth significantly. Now despite the good heavier rains still you would not find any such confident sentence written by any Financial Guru in the media or elsewhere. This perhaps is because of a very uncertain atmosphere around the whole world due to the Pandemic and its rapid spread of the second wave.
Another thing observed during these rains has been the devastation especially happening in the North East side and in the mountain ranges as well as the planes of Bihar and Madhya Pradesh-where the number of high casualties is still not confirmed. People going towards the Badrinath and other mountain ranges had to face a very tough time and some even had to lose their lives while traveling in these terrains during the heavier pours. Today itself the heavier rains causing a huge property and human loss in Madhya Pradesh was shown in the news-which was very heart-rending and painful. Now that we are in the second week of August the rains should have subsided but there is no such signal and the continued rains are causing a big concern for the people of those areas.
Now it has been a regular sight for all of us to see the huge damage caused by the heavier rains-whether it is Bihar or MP or HP or even the eastern belt-we have not seen any improvement in safeguarding our properties and lives during such times-when the heavier rains occur. A very big question arises as to why the authorities don’t look towards this side during the remaining nine months when a lot could have been done to construct certain bridges, raise certain obstructors or damn-like structures for the water to be diverted or stored. Even why they don’t heed any attention towards the mountain areas-where almost twenty-four hours the Mountain range workers are busy repairing or constructing the roads. Why the weaker sections of the mountains couldn’t be taken care of so strongly that there were no erosions at least on the identified belts through which metallic roads are carved out?
Rains are welcome for the Monsoon season for all of us-but the devastation which happens in such crucial areas during those rains, causes a very heavy loss and a painful scene for the whole country. We cannot simply attribute all this to Global warming or Global Change only. That is the new way of passing the buck. Even if that was the alarm-what has been done to counter that even at the international or national level? When will that day come when we had not to put in Helicopters and Army into such dreadful scenes for the rescue operations? We must first put all our resources and energies into such correction courses and fix up all the causative factors which lead our different states to devastating stages for no fault of theirs. I must say that we still are not seriously tackling such things. If a serious approach was put these things would have been corrected once for all and a huge loss and damage to the lives and properties would be saved and then we could think of the developmental progress side by side. Let us for the time being stop certain projects like making the bigger statues or bigger monumental structures and devote first to such corrections. I am sure all such things could be corrected and controlled very well within a short span of a couple of years at the most-but our priorities have got to be towards such concerns.
Even the political parties also set their agendas keeping in view their terms of short five years and their plans and forecasted projects are also such where they would first like to do something which would keep them alive in the hearts of the people and attending to such national emergencies-where every year thousands of lives and millions worth of property gets damaged due to heavier and unforeseen natural calamities-becomes their priority number two to be followed -if at all -they got back.
Look at Israel-where the advancement in terms of water recirculation from seawater and rainwater is considered to be their miraculous invention. Look at their advancement on the technical side to counter their calamities. It is a small country but their approach is different. They prioritize their people’s agonies to be wiped off first-no matter for which period they have come to rule. Unfortunately, we in India still are busy establishing our sanctity and supremacy for the caste and creed to flourish more than the country’s agonies to be wiped off on priority.
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