Oasis in a desert: The Supreme Court’s directions on drought management [Read Judgment]

The Supreme Court today pulled up the Centre and several state governments for failing to adequately deal with droughts..A bench comprising Madan Lokur and NV Ramana JJ. issued a number of directions to the Centre in a PIL filed by NGO Swaraj Abhiyan. The NGO was represented by Prashant Bhushan..The writ petition was filed after nine States – Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh – declared drought in a number of districts..The petitioners sought drought to be declared in the states of Bihar, Gujarat and Haryana as well, and prayed for a direction to these states to declare drought and provide essential relief and compensation to the people affected..The apex court noted that the legislation that provides for risk assessment and risk management in the event of a disaster such as a drought, the National Disaster Management Act of 2005, was not being implemented properly. Section 11 of the Act calls for a National Plan to determine how such disasters can be prevented and dealt with..However, it was revealed that the Centre has not drawn up the National Plan yet..To this, the bench reacted,.“Evidently, anticipating a disaster such as a drought is not yet in the ‘things to do’ list of the Union of India and ad hoc measures and knee jerk reactions are the order of the day…”.Instead there are two sets of guidelines –the Manual for Drought Management and National Disaster and the Management Guidelines for Management of Drought – both of which are regarded as mere guidelines with no binding force..To make matters worse, at the state level, each government follows a different standard for determining whether an area is affected by drought..For instance, Bihar does not take into consideration Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Moisture Adequacy Index (MAI), two important, scientifically tested gauges..The court noted,.“Bihar has made available the figures only till August 2015 but as we have seen earlier, the general situation in Bihar gets progressively worse after August 2015. The figures (other than rainfall coverage) post August 2015 have not been shared with us by learned counsel for Bihar for unknown reasons. .Perhaps the game plan is to disclose selective information and material that suits its interests (but not the interest of its citizens) and to withhold information and material that might be uncomfortable.”.Quite astonishingly, other states disregard rainfall as the primary factor. This, despite the Manual for Drought Management and National Disaster stating,.“Rainfall is the most important indicator of drought. A departure in rainfall from its long-term averages should be taken as the basis for drought declaration.”.The state of Gujarat has its own way of determining deficit rainfall. While assessing the situation in Gujarat, the bench noted,.“Even though Gujarat relies upon State-wide figures of rainfall, it is acknowledged that normally the pattern of rainfall varies from village to village and sometimes within the same area, certain villages receive high rainfall and certain villages receive low rainfall, therefore, district-wise averages are normally considered..There is therefore an inherent contradiction in the understanding of Gujarat in what constitutes deficit rainfall as she understands and as projected before us.”.The bench also criticised the Centre for attempting to shirk from its responsibilities during the course of the proceedings..“The third affidavit of the Union of India complicates the matter by introducing the concept of ‘federalism’…respect to drought. The ostensible purpose of introducing this concept is to enable the Union of India to wash its hands off in matters concerning drought declaration and to give enough elbow room to a State Government to decide whether to declare a drought or not….The Union of India has certainly to maintain a delicate and fine balance between federalism and its constitutional responsibility, and that it must do, otherwise it is ultimately the common person who will suffer.”.Thus, the court directed the Union of India to constitute a National Disaster Response Force within a period of six months, a National Disaster Mitigation Fund within a period of three months, and to formulate a National Plan in terms of Section 11 of the Act..Other directions include the usage of innovative methods of water conservation, and the use of modern technology to make an early determination of a drought or a drought-like situation. Moreover, the Centre was directed to update the Manual for Drought Management of 2009..As regards the situation in the three states, Department of Agriculture of the central government was directed to hold a meeting within a week, with the Chief Secretaries of Bihar, Gujarat and Haryana to “review the apparent drought situation”..Read the judgment below..Image taken from here.

Oasis in a desert: The Supreme Court’s directions on drought management [Read Judgment]

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