Doubling of Farmers’ Income

It is heartening that Narendra Modi government’s persistent efforts for the farmers are now yielding desired results. On the back of a plethora of ambitious and encouraging government policies like easy availability of fertilizers, crop insurance schemes, easy access to credit, increased focus on cash crops, encouragement to agri-entrepreneurship, farm loan waiver to the distressed farmers, kisan credit card scheme and others, the farm sector now appears to be undergoing a tectonic shift. Compared to financial year 2017-18, farmer’s income has doubled in fiscal 2021-22 for certain crops in some states. Even in remaining states, the income of the farmers grew in the range of 1.3 to 1.7 times during last five years.

The minimum support price (MSP) increasing by 1.5 to 2.3 times since 2014 and becoming increasingly aligned with market linked prices, has contributed significantly in ensuring the passage of higher prices to farmers. Moreover, setting the floor price benchmark for multiple crop varieties, which are 23 presently, also sufficiently inspire farmers to move over to the crop varies which promise better yield. A significant jump in farm and non-farm income of farmers is helping a number of rural people imbibing entrepreneurial spirit in their efforts. Aspirational districts programme has also been a huge success in respect of self help group financing in last four years, assisting needy farmer to access required resources for their cultivation.

The Kisan Credit Card scheme (KCC) is doing a great job in bringing a large number of farmers under the formal credit mechanism. Presently, KCC loans are available to farmers engaged in crop husbandry, animal husbandry and other allied activities for both the short term and long term. The government of India is also implementing an interest subvention scheme for short term crop loans through KCC, under which, short term loans up to Rs. 3 lakhs are given to the farmers at concessional rate of 7% and additional 3% Prompt Repayment Incentive (PRI) makes the effective rate of interest at 4%.

Driven by government policies, the exports of agricultural and processed food products rose by 14 percent in the first three months of the current Financial Year 2022-23 compared to the corresponding period of FY 22. India’s agricultural products exports grew by 19.92% during 2021-22 to touch USD 50.21 billion.

A research report by SBI has clearly shown that the farm sector is currently in the throes of a significant structural shift. However, farmers engaged in cash crop cultivation saw their income increase at a significantly higher rate, compared to those engaged in cultivation of non-cash crops. For example, the income of farmers cultivating soybean in Maharashtra and cotton in Karnataka became double during this period. While, allied/non-farm income also showed a significant rise of 1.4-1.8 times in the majority of states. The 77th National Sample Survey corroborated that the source of farmer income has become increasingly diverse apart from crops.

However, since 2014, out of about 37 million eligible farmers, only around 50% of farmers received the amount of loan waiver till March 2022. Notably, in some of the states more than 90% of farmers received the debt waiver amount. SBI is of the view that farm loan waivers by states have failed to provide relief to the intended recipients, sabotaged credit discipline in certain geographies and made banks wary of further lending.

Philanthropists needed for Old Age Crisis

The number of aged people, who end up being in old age homes in the last leg of their life, is growing with social transformation and evolving lifestyles. The changing notions of the family and relations, fast urbanization, movement of the youth to different places in search of better life & career, growing nuclear family system, generation gap, weakening cultural ethos and scarce of resources are also some of the factors that adequately add to this process.

With Amitabh Bachchan making an announcement on Twitter about the dream of late Lata Mangeshkar to build an old age home named Swar Mauli near Nashik for ageing artists from the field of theatre, music, cinema and the performing arts, who have fallen on hard times, the issue has again shot into limelight. Bollywood celebrities like Pravin Babi, Meena Kumari, Vimi, A K Hangal, Rajendra Malone, Naseem Bano, Cuckoo, Bhagwan Dada, Bharat Bhushan, Chandra Mohan and a few others are among many stars who spent their last days in loneliness and penury. Even Dada Saheb Phalke, the father of Indian cinema met a lone and tragic death with no one around. We often tend to remember the tragic part of only top personalities, however, a lot more are forced to live in dark and doom, whom hardly anyone cares for.

Here comes the role of philanthropists, playing a vital role for welfare of the society. Though, this trend is not quite popular up in India, it is fast picking up with a few corporate benevolent pledging big sum of money for the humanitarian causes. Only recently, Gautam Adani, India’s richest man pledged to donate Rs. 60,000 crore towards charity, which is one tenth of his total net worth of around 95 billion dollar and this money will be used for a range of social causes including healthcare, education and skill development. The chairman of Wipro has consistently been by far the biggest philanthropist among Indian billionaires. With his foundation established in 2001, Azin Premji is doing a lot of works to improve the quality education especially in rural India. Having worked with over 3.5 lakh schools in the country, Premji has donated over Rs. 17,600 crore in the last two years and Rs. 7904 crore in 2020. HCL Technologies founder-chairman Shiv Nadar too has been at the forefront, donating money for humanitarian causes (Donation of Rs. 1263 crore in 2021 itself).

Mukesh Ambani, the head of Reliance Industries donated Rs. 557 crore in the last fiscal and occupied the third spot in EdelGive Hurun India Philanthropy List 2021. Similarly, Kumar Mangalam Birla and family donated Rs. 337 crore in the same year and stood at fourth spot on the list. Aditya Birla Group donated Rs. 400 crore to the PM CARES Fund and 50 crore to FICCI-Aditya Birla CSR Centre for Excellence. Among top donators, Infosys’ Nandan Nilekani with Rs. 183 crore, Hindusja family with Rs. 166 crore, the Bajaj family with Rs. 136 crore, Anil Agrawal and family with Rs. 130 crore and Burman family of Dabur Group with Rs. 114 crore in financial year 2021, occupy space among the top 10.

The growing challenges thrown upon the people in old age, besides a large number of people already facing poverty, deprivation, malnutrition and all sorts of shortages, there is always a need to make an effort to help and support social welfare causes by way of donations. This is the reason why most of the CSR efforts in India are guided towards education, health, women and children, skill building and old age people.

Making more Room for Space

Of all the unprecedented decisions that have been taken recently in the country, India’s move to privatise the space sector has proven to be one of the most revolutionary as the number of startups in the sector has increased to more than 100 in 2022 from just 11 in 2019. From launch vehicles to satellites, propulsion engines, remote sensors, navigation & communication etc., Indian space startups are developing space tools and solutions. The move has democratised the access of both public and private space entities to tap the potential of the space sector to the fullest and opened gates to a more collaborative & self-reliant space start-up ecosystem.

India is acting swiftly to fulfil its space ambitions as it also slowly upgrades its position with a space program that marks as one of the most advanced among other spacefaring nations in the Asian Continent. India earmarked Rs 13,700 cr for the Dept. of Space in Budget 2022-23, as ISRO gears up for Gaganyaan — India’s first human spaceflight mission. Besides, India has other future missions including the Chandrayaan-3 programme, the Shukrayaan Venus mission which is expected to get launched in 2024, a twin aeronomy satellite mission that will study the uppermost layer of Earth’s atmosphere, Mission Trishna (in collaboration with French Space Agency CNES) for accurate mapping of land surface temperature, to name a few.

PM Narendra Modi, in the 90th episode of his monthly radio programme ‘Mann Ki Baat’, went to lengths lauding the growth of the Indian space sector and shared interesting strides made by various accomplished space start-ups and organisations. Two start-ups ‘Agnikul’ and ‘Skyroot’ – were also mentioned, which are developing launch vehicles that will take small payloads into space, also bringing down the cost of Space Launching significantly. Other space start-ups that made it to the radio programme included the Hyderabad-based Startup ‘Dhruva Space’, which is working on High technology Solar Panels for Satellite deployers and Satellites; and a Banagalore-based start-up ‘Astrome’, which is making flat antennas which will not only be small, but very cost-efficient too. PM also mentioned about Tanvi Patel, a school student who is working on a very small satellite, which is going to be launched into space in the next few months; and about Tanveer Ahmed of ‘Digantara’, another space startup who is trying to map waste in space.

“In the past few years, many big feats related to the space sector… One of these achievements of the country has been the creation of ‘In-Space’ agency, that is promoting new opportunities in the space sector for the private sector of India. This beginning has especially attracted the youth of our country,” PM Modi said as he elaborated on the role being played by the Indian National Center for Space Promotion and Authorization (IN-SPACe) for promoting, handholding, authorizing and licensing private players to carry out Space Activities. Access to ISRO facilities and expertise has also been extended to private entities to support their space activities. The existing policies in the space domain are also being revised and new policies are being drafted to address policy frameworks for various areas such as SpaceCom, Remote Sensing, Technology Transfer, Navigation, Space Transportation, Space exploration and Space Situational Awareness. In order to address the necessary legal framework, the department of Space is also in the process of enacting a National legislation. The draft Space Activities Bill has completed Public and Legal consultations and will be processed for further approvals for inter-ministerial consultations.The government is even in the process of planning to allow FDI with the view to boost the investment in the space sector by the foreign players.

“Like the IT sector, India’s space sector will rise to new heights…we will soon come up with a new policy for the space sector and a policy for ease of doing business,” PM Modi had said after inaugurating the headquarters of the Indian National Center for Space Promotion and Authorization (IN-SPACe) in Ahmedabad just recently. As India awaits this breaking bit, its space economy, which is valued at around ₹40,000 crore, is sure to grow exponentially.

Wheat Farmers garner more than MSP in Markets

This year the wheat farmers may have overall gotten Rs. 5994 crore extra as compared to the MSP because they could sell at market prices. It’s heartening to know that crores of wheat farmers across the country benefitted significantly from the higher market rates during this crop season as majority of them sold their produce to the private traders at higher price in comparison to the Minimum Support Price (MSP). In this way, farmers reaped higher remuneration for their produce than MSP, as market system worked better for them. The prevailing geo-political situations also provided more options to farmers to sell their produce. It has been reported that during this season the farmers sold their produce at an average rate of Rs. 2150 per quintal in the open market. Accordingly, on the estimated procurement quantity of 444 lakh MT, the farmers may have earned around Rs. 95,460 crore at the rate of Rs. 2150 per quintal instead of Rs. 89,466 crores at the MSP of Rs. 2015 per quintal.

The market prices of wheat remained higher than the MSP throughout this procurement period across the country. The market prices were in the range of around Rs. 2100/- to 2500/ per quintal, which gave enough leeway to the farmers to earn higher. The downward trend in public procurement is attributed to the significantly higher purchase of wheat by private traders as wheat price in the international market shot up due to international demand-supply mismatch on account of prevailing geo-political situations. The MSP of wheat for Rabi Market Season (RMS) 2022-23 was also announced by the Government of India well in advance during the month of September 2021 with a hike of Rs. 40/-per quintal to Rs. 2015/per quintal from Rs. 1975/ per quintal earlier. The MSP of wheat has increased by around 49% to Rs. 2015/quintal in 2022-23, in comparison with Rs. 1350/quintal in 2013-14.

A transparent and uniform policy for procurement of wheat by FCI and state government agencies has helped this. Because if any farmer gets better price in comparison to MSP, he is free to sell his produce in the open market. Inspired by the conducive policies of the government, this year, farmers in greater number in major wheat procuring states in the country with substantial contribution to public procurement like Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, preferred to sell major part of their produce to the market.

The MSP of 22 mandated agricultural crops is announced by the Government of India at the beginning of the sowing season of crops to ensure remunerative price of the produce to farmers. MSP is finalized on the basis of the recommendations of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), which is determined considering important factors like cost of production, overall demand-supply conditions, domestic and international prices, inter-crop price parity, terms of trade between agricultural and non-agricultural sectors, the likely effect on the rest of economy, besides ensuring rational utilization of land, water and other production resources and a minimum of 50% as the margin over cost of production.

Paving the way for Co-Operative Development

The financial co-operative institutions, which trace back their origins to the 19th century, were established across jurisdictions with the objective of extending loans at affordable prices to the unbanked population. Amongst such institutions, the services of credit unions are exclusive for their members, who share a common profession, entrepreneurship interests or location. In contrast, co-operative banks offer services to non-members as well. There is immense potential for development and empowerment of farmers, agriculture and rural areas of the country in the cooperative sector, spurring the government agencies to take many unprecedented decisions to empower the sector with the mantra of ‘Sahakar Se Samriddhi’. In just around a year of its existence, many old demands and problems of the cooperative sector have been resolved by the new Ministry of Cooperation.

The rural co-operative credit system in India is primarily mandated to ensure flow of credit to the agriculture sector. It comprises short-term and long-term co-operative credit structures. The short-term co-operative credit structure operates with a three-tier system – Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) at the village level, Central Cooperative Banks (CCBs) at the district level and State Cooperative Banks (StCBs) at the State level. PACS are outside the purview of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 and hence not regulated by the Reserve Bank of India. During last one year, RBI has taken important steps to increase credit flow through cooperative banks, announcing three very important policy decisions for the sector.

Firstly, the limit of individual housing loan has been doubled for Urban Co-operative Banks and more than doubled for Rural Co-operative Banks. With this decision, the individual housing loan limit for tier-1 Urban Cooperative Banks (UCBs) has now been increased from ₹30 lakh to ₹60 lakh, for tier-2 UCB from ₹70 lakh to ₹1.40 crore, and for Rural Cooperative Banks (RCBs) these have been increased from ₹20 lakhs and ₹30 lakhs to ₹50 lakhs and ₹75 lakhs respectively. In another major decision, RCBs have been allowed to lend to Commercial Real Estate Residential Housing sector, which will increase the scope of our Rural Co-operative Banks and also give impetus to the resolution of providing affordable houses to the people, facilitating better flow of credit to the housing sector, which caters to the needs of lakhs of people especially from the middle class. In the third major decision, now UCBs will be allowed to provide door step banking facility to their customers like commercial banks.

These decisions have given new impetus to the development of the cooperative sector. The increase in credit flow to the housing sector through co-operative banks will lead to an increase in economic activity, increase in capital formation and employment generation, which will have a multiplier effect on the economy. Now, with these changes made by the RBI, cooperative banks will also get a level playing field in the competitive banking sector. Now one can say that co-operative model can be emulated in various other sectors with a continuous push from the government for boosting the economy of the country.

Tribal Research for Conservation and Meaningful Development

India has established ‘National Tribal Research Institute (NTRI) in Delhi to focus on the development of tribes and conservation of their art, culture and heritage. The newly built institute is positioned as to become the nerve centre of tribal research issues and matters in academic, executive and legislative fields as around 10.4 crores tribals living in different parts of the country love their art, craft and cultural threads to be preserved and promoted. Scheduled Tribes (ST) constituting approximately 8.6% of the population of India, also have very close relations with nature and forest geography of the country and may provide great insights.

Realising the importance, the Government of India has recently, focused much on the development of tribes and conservation of their heritage and culture as a priority. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs in line with this vision and its enduring commitment for welfare of tribals, geared itself to ensure sectoral development through enhanced allocation of financial resources, convergence of efforts, re-engineering of planning and implementation mechanism of the Ministry. With an enhanced availability of resources the Ministry is now charting out a new progress path with greater commitment to ensure holistic development of tribal communities. Presently, Tribal Research Institute (TRI) is the research body of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs at the state level, however it focuses more on gathering knowledge and research and less as a think tank for tribal development and preservation of tribal cultural heritage.

NTRI and similar institutions of national eminence have a great role in nation-building as collaboration and networking with reputed research institutes, universities, organizations, academic bodies and resource Centres is essential to further the cause effectively. Monitoring projects of tribal research institutes, centres of excellence and research scholars of NFS and setting up the norms for improvement in the quality of research and training, will pave the way for better understanding of socio-cultural dynamics of the society, history, nature and geography, as tribals are widely considered to be the original inhabitants of the land.

The new institute would also provide policy inputs to the Ministry of Tribal Affairs as well as state welfare departments, design studies and programs that improve or support socio-economic aspects of tribal lifestyles and help in creating and maintaining the database of PMAAGY. It will also provide guidelines in setting and running of tribal museums and showcasing rich tribal cultural heritage of India under one umbrella.

In recent years, tribal artisans, tribal produce and tribal dance troupes have attracted attention as they are invited to showcase their indigenous products and performances across the country. The scheme of Mechanism for Marketing of Minor Forest Produce (MFP) through Minimum Support Price (MSP) and Development of Value Chain for MFP covers various activities. Hence, expanding knowledge base about tribals, their art, culture, heritage and produce is the need of the hour.

Unprecedented Promises of Uttar Pradesh

Gautam Adani, Asia’s richest man, announced an investment of Rs 70,000 crore in Uttar Pradesh, promising 30,000 jobs. Attended by who’s who of the business world, the third UP investors’ summit saw Prime Minister laying foundation stone of 1406 projects worth more than Rs 80,000 crores on the occasion and investments accruing from a number of top business houses. The summit reflects the growing confidence in the remarkable growth story of Uttar Pradesh and is promising to create new possibilities in the state. India retaining the fastest growing country of the G20, further bolsters the confidence of the business community, promising huge investments in a state, which has huge potential, bolstered by much improved law and order situations and conducive business policies of the state government. The sectors inviting investments include agriculture and allied services, IT and Electronics, MSME, manufacturing, renewable energy, pharma, tourism, defence & aerospace, handloom and textiles among others.

The allocation of unprecedented capital expenditure of Rs 7.50 lakh crore in this budget of UP, presented just a few days earlier, is something, that gives out strong message to the investors, paving way for strong infrastructural and manufacturing growth among others. The confidence building law and order situation in the state has created a proper atmosphere for industry. The increased capability and potential of the administration and government of the state has helped a lot create a conducive atmosphere for the industries to invest. With 1100 KM of Ganga river covering 25-30 districts, UP creates huge opportunities for chemical-free natural farming corridor on both sides of the river, which may prove to be a golden opportunity to invest in the agriculture sector. Defence corridor in the state does have the potential to act as a harbinger of new opportunities.

The growth story of India continues with it being the third largest energy consumer country in the world, which reflects the growing economic activities in the country. In 2021, despite Covid-19 pandemic, India recorded FDI of $84 billion coming from more than 100 countries of the world along with creating a new record by exporting merchandise worth more than 30 lakh crore rupees, which helps a state with conducive business atmosphere. The mantra of ‘Reform-Perform-Transform’ for last 8 years lays the very foundation of policy stability, emphasis on coordination, effective execution and ease of doing business. Revolutionary initiatives like One Nation-One Tax GST, One Nation-One Grid, One Nation-One Mobility Card, One Nation-One Ration Card reinforce investors confidence, amply supported by the solid and clear policies of the state government. Steps like modern powergrid, gas pipeline, multi model connectivity, record number of expressways, strengthening of connectivity of economic zones, modern railway infrastructure, eastern and western dedicated freight corridor – all are converging in Uttar Pradesh with a promise to give a new push to its development.

State of States on Setback of Debts

Debt-to-GSDP (Gross State Domestic Product) ratio signifies how healthy a state is in terms of funding its expenditure without accumulating future debt. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in its report also highlighted that the debt-to-GSDP ratio for 18 states and union territories has grown to 31.2% from 22.6% in the last 10 years, ending September 2021, which goes against the fiscal health of some of the high ratio states. Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) committee headed by former revenue secretary N.K. Singh had recommended states to achieve a debt-to-GSDP ratio of 20% by the financial year 2022-23, but it looks a far-fetched target.

According to the RBI report, market borrowing has reached 63.6% of the GDP of states by March 2022, which is a loan that governments raise by issuing market securities such as bonds. Market borrowing forms the largest component of the total outstanding debt of states and union territories. The RBI says, the combined debt-to-GSDP ratio is expected to remain at 31% by March end of 2022, which is much higher than the recommendation of the report of the NK Singh committee. As per the report, the states with the highest debt-to-GSDP ratio in 2021-22 include Punjab with 53.3%, Rajasthan with 39.8%, West Bengal with 38.8%, Kerala with 38.3% and Andhra Pradesh with 32.4%.

The rise in the debt of Indian states fuelled by Covid-19 pandemic generated long lockdown and pre-state election freebie promises among others, has made things worrisome, especially for a few states like Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Kerala. How states damage their fiscal health, can be gauged from the fact that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) promised the people in Punjab- 300 units of free electricity a month for every household, besides Rs 1,000 a month to every woman in the state, which according to estimates, may cost the exchequer an extra Rs 20,000 crore a year, when Punjab’s outstanding debt has already risen to Rs 2.82 lakh crore. Similar is the case with Andhra Pradesh, whose outstanding debt has hit Rs 3.89 lakh crore in the financial year 2021-22.

However, there are silver lines appearing too. The ICICI Securities after studying the budgets of 13 large states which account for around 80% of the national GDP, suggests in its March report that aggregate gross fiscal deficit (GFD) may ease to 3.3% in 2022-23 as compared to 3.4% in 2021-22. Moreover, with the recovery in economy, states are also going to have more revenue, which will also be supported by the higher transfer of fund by the Central Government. The Centre has transferred Rs 8.83 lakh crore in 2021-22 as per the recommendations of the 15th finance commission under tax devolution plan. Besides, the Centre also transferred Rs 1.59 lakh crore to the state government on account of GST compensation.

Further, under 15th Finance Commission, states have got a lot more flexibility in spending on developmental activities, but most of their spending went into populist schemes with slow growth in revenues. Indian states are also technically unlikely to default on the debt repayments, as the Centre imposes strict limits on their borrowings. Without doubt, the pandemic has greatly aggravated the situation, leaving the states with little or no buffers or fiscal headroom, some of the states are also responsible for complicating the situation.

Why use forecast when real data is available

One sure learning of global financial crisis of 2008 has been the inherent flaws of over dependence of data modelling. The pricing of derivatives were dependent too much on data modelling and ignores the real risk and ignores the real risk of basis, fact tails. WHO seems to have ignored all such learning and resorted to flawed data modelling for projecting on sensitive topic of pandemic induced debts. Despite India’s objection to the process, methodology and outcomes of the modeling or mathematical model or exercise, World Health Organisation (WHO) released the excess mortality estimates. WHO has done this without adequately addressing India’s concerns and taking into account what India’s system of data generation and production says. The World health agency did this despite the fact that India had already informed WHO that given the availability of authentic data published through the Civil Registration System by the Registrar General of India (RGI), modeling or mathematical models should not be used for projecting excess mortality numbers for India.

The branch of Economics dealing with such projections is Econometrics. Econometrics is the application of statistical methods to economic data in order to give empirical content to economic relationships. A basic tool for econometrics is the multiple linear regression model. Econometric theory uses statistical theory and mathematical statistics to evaluate and develop econometric methods. While using such techniques, Economists are well aware of the limitation of these modeling techniques and try to steer away from controversies esp when real data is available.

Under the law in India, the chief registrar of every state is given one year to send the compiled data on births and deaths to the RGI for collation and publication. India did it right by firmly conveying its concern that the robust and accurate data generated through the legal framework of states must be respected, accepted and used by WHO, rather than relying on factually inaccurate mathematical projection based on non-official sources of data as India has a robust, efficient and comprehensive system for registering deaths. All Covid fatalities have systematically been recorded with full transparency following a legal process in the country.

The WHO and other mathematical modelers’ approach towards the data provided by the Indian agencies, appeared ridiculous as they went ahead with their calculations as if India had no system in place to enumerate the deathcount. The WHO simply plunged into calculating mortality based on minuscule samples collected through informal and unconfirmed channels and sources. All this has happened when Civil Registration System (CRS) and Sample Registration System (SRS) data have been made available. Indian law mandates that the informers and the registrar must complete the process of registration within 21 days regarding death and birth. The RGI has a statutory duty to declare these figures. The CRS figure is about 81 lakh deaths for the calendar year 2020, which is 4.7 lakh higher than the previous year. India has even more reliable system than the CRS is SRS. It is the world’s largest demographic survey and has been in practice since the sixties. Through eight million house visit, a corpus of data on fertility and mortality is created.

But, the WHO’s technical advisory group selected India for its modeling or mathematical model without engaging with the RGI. They relied upon media reports, inadequate information received from RTI responses and other unconfirmed sources without thinking that none of these sources is representative enough to justify its decision to cover a country as large as India. Clearly, it’s a disservice to a time honoured and decade old national system. WHO’s act is also against UN systems, which rely only on national data sources. This seems to be simply an attempt to sensationalise and show the country in a poor light, at a time when in spite of resource churn and poor healthcare infrastructure, its global stature and presence is increasing due to its proper handing of the pandemic handing at home and helping the needy countries. Hence, it was an attempt to tarnish India’s image as a responsible country.

Implementing Amrit Sarovars to fight existential crisis

“Water, water everywhere, not a drop to drink!” Humanity seems to be heading towards such a situation on a planet covered mostly by oceans. The global water picture is alarming with over 400 crore people, almost two thirds of the world’s population, experiencing severe water scarcity for at least one month each year. Over 200 crore people live in countries where water supply is inadequate. It is being projected that around half of the world’s population could be living in areas facing water scarcity by as early as 2025. Some 70 crore people could be displaced by intense water scarcity by 2030. By 2040, roughly 1 in 4 children worldwide will be living in areas of extremely high water stress.

India too is fighting acute crisis scenario. Water crisis is acquiring alarming proportion in many parts of India- a country traditionally known for its rivers and multitudinous other water sources, thanks to the conventional wisdom of the people. Currently country is reeling under severe heat waves with the mercury crossing 45 degrees celsius at a number of places, adversely affecting life and livelihood of scores of people. The seriousness of the situation can be conjectured from a number of facts put forth by the Niti Aayog and other government agencies. Around 60 crore people in the country face high to extreme water stress. About three-fourth of the households in India do not have drinking water at their premise and rely on unsafe sources of water. Nearly 70% of available water is contaminated and major rivers are dying because of pollution and other factors, pushing India at 120th amongst 122 countries in the water quality index. As many as 256 of 700 districts in India have reported critical or over-exploited groundwater levels and are bereft of useful water sources. 21 cities- including Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bhopal and Chennai- probably exhausted their groundwater resources in 2021.

In such a gloomy backdrop, concept and implementation of 75 Amrit Sarovar in every district seems to be the right cure. Each of these Amrit Sarovar will have approx. area of one acre with a water holding capacity of 10,000 cubic meter. This Mission is to be completed by 15th August 2023 with around 50,000 Amrit Sarovar may be constructed in the country within this period. So far, 12,241 sites have been finalised for construction of Amrit Sarovars by states/districts, out of which, works have started on 4,856 Amrit Sarovars. And, the country’s first “Amrit Sarovar” has been inaugurated just now at Patwai, Rampur(UP).

This mission is acquiring the shape of a public movement as the government is trying to ensure people’s participation to make it a success. For this, local freedom fighters, their family members, Martyr’s family members, Padma Awardees and citizens of the local area, wherein an Amrit Sarovar is to be constructed, will be engaged at all stages. Without doubt, this is the worst existential crisis humanity is facing. Work is needed on several fronts simultaneously like stopping overuse, checking water pollution, expanding water related infrastructure and taking effective measures to stop the changing weather patterns due to climate change.