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21 August 2024 at 3:50:16 pm

Arid State

Maharashtra has finally put an official number on a crisis that farmers have been experiencing for weeks. The state government has declared 265 of its 358 talukas drought-affected, activating the first stage of its drought-management framework. The scale of the distress should make this more than another seasonal relief exercise. It is a reminder that water stress is no longer an episodic crisis but a recurring governance challenge. The state received 798.2 mm of rain against a normal 970.9...

Arid State

Maharashtra has finally put an official number on a crisis that farmers have been experiencing for weeks. The state government has declared 265 of its 358 talukas drought-affected, activating the first stage of its drought-management framework. The scale of the distress should make this more than another seasonal relief exercise. It is a reminder that water stress is no longer an episodic crisis but a recurring governance challenge. The state received 798.2 mm of rain against a normal 970.9 mm between June 1 and September 26, a deficit of 18 percent. The first drought trigger is activated when rainfall falls more than 25 percent below normal and is accompanied by a prolonged dry spell of 21 days. Though the aggregate state deficit is lower than that threshold, the taluka-level assessment has established the conditions required for intervention. Except for five districts, rainfall has been deficient across the state. The government has ordered a stay on the recovery of agriculture-related loans and restructuring of crop loans, while extending concessions on electricity bills for agricultural pumps. Employment Guarantee Scheme norms are to be relaxed; food grains provided to farmers and arrangements made for drinking water and fodder. Crop-loss surveys will determine the eventual financial assistance. While these measures can cushion the shock, they cannot solve the problem. Maharashtra has lived with drought long enough for drought relief to have become an administrative routine. The more difficult question is why the state repeatedly finds itself having to mobilise the same machinery. Tankers, fodder camps, loan restructuring and employment guarantees are indispensable when the rains fail. But they are essentially the politics and economics of response, not resilience. The state has considerable experience in watershed development, farm ponds, check dams, groundwater recharge and other forms of water conservation. Yet the effectiveness of such interventions depends less on announcing them than on where they are built, whether they are maintained and whether groundwater extraction is regulated. Large-scale water-conservation works announced as part of the present relief package must therefore be judged by measurable outcomes rather than expenditure. There is a larger agricultural question. A state with highly variable rainfall cannot indefinitely expand water-intensive cropping patterns in regions whose hydrology cannot support them. Crop choices, irrigation efficiency and groundwater management have to become part of drought policy rather than being treated as separate subjects. The present declaration should consequently be viewed as both relief and warning. While the relief is urgent, the warning is structural. The state government cannot control the monsoon but it can decide how much water it captures when the rains arrive, how efficiently it uses what it stores and how resilient its farmers are when the skies fail. A drought code can declare an emergency. But only sustained water management can prevent the emergency from becoming routine.

Unrest within Mahayuti

Writer: Abhijit Mulye
Abhijit Mulye
Jan 20, 2025
2 min read

Updated: Jan 21, 2025

Mahayuti

Mumbai: The state administration on Sunday stalled the appointments of guardian ministers in Raigad and Nashik districts. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had cleared the appointments before he left for Davos in Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum on Saturday. They are believed to have been stalled on behest of Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who heads the state in absence of the Chief Minister.


NCP’s Aditi Tatkare and BJP’s Girish Mahajan were entrusted with responsibilities of guardian minister for the Raigad and Nashik districts respectively, where Shiv Sena’s Bharat Gogawale and Dada Bhuse had staked claims. Gogawale is a first-time minister while, Bhuse had been the guardian minister of the district during previous government under Eknath Shinde.


Shiv Sena, NCP and BJP all the three constituents of Mahayuti have strong roots in both the districts. However, the Shiv Sena and the NCP had been particularly on loggerheads there. The Shiv Sena, which had been demanding the guardian minister’s post in Nashik district has managed to win only two assembly seats in the district where the NCP has Six and the BJP has Five MLAs. On the contrary, in Raigad the NCP has won only one seat while the Shiv Sena and the BJP both have Three MLAs each in the district.


Sunil Tatkare, MP from Raigad Lok Sabha constituency and the stat unit president of the NCP and father of Aditi Tatkare, had been the guardian minister of Raigad between 2004 and 2014. Gogawale had always been his political opponent before Tatkare joined the Mahayuti government under Ajit Pawar’s leadership in 2023. Gogawale claimed that all the Six Shiv Sena-BJP MLAs in the district had opined in his favour to be the guardian minister of the district and after the decision to appoint Aditi Tatkare was announced, his supporters resorted to violent protests. They burnt tyres in bid to stall traffic on highway in the district. Reacting to the developments, Tatkare said that the issue should be pondered over after CM Fadnavis returns from Davos on Saturday and settled amicably.


In Nashik Girish Mahajan had been the guardian minister of the district between 2014 and 2019 when Fadnavis was the Chief Minister.


The post of guardian minister doesn’t have any constitutional mandate and is considered to be a political appointment. Guardian ministers head the district planning and development councils (DPDC) that control the funds for development works being carried out in the particular district. This control wields much of political power to the minister in that district whereby spreading the party in the district becomes much easier. This is the reason why the grass root politicians seem to be very sensitive to such appointments.


While Gogawale and Bhuse are unhappy about not being appointed as guardian ministers, some others like NCP’s Hasan Mushrif and BJP’s Pankaja Munde are unhappy about not being appointed as guardian district in their home districts of Kolhapur and Beed respectively. DCM Shinde is learnt to have gone to his ancestral village Dare in Satara district after the decision and BJP’s firefighters Chandrashekhar Bawankule and Girish Mahajan are expected to meet him there to try finding a way out of the issue.

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