[Assam] NDTV: Drought in NE - rainiest place in the world?

[umesh sharma]

Northeast faces near drought conditions   
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Kishalay Bhattcharjee

Wednesday, August 9, 2006 (Dharampur, Assam):

  The Northeast, which traditionally gets more rainfall than any other place in India, is facing near-drought conditions.

When the rest of the country suffers drought-like conditions, they envy the Northeast. But one of the wettest places in the world is longing for rains. 

"We are doomed, not a drop of rain, look all around. There has not been any rainfall. What do we do? Just wait for God to look our way," said Rajen Das, a farmer.

It is one of the worst in recent years in Assam. Local cultivators are hoping that it will rain on Poornima or full moon day and if it does not rain on Wednesday, it won't rain for the entire month and rice can be cultivated only over the next fifteen days.

The story is the same throughout the northeast. This year, Assam and Meghalaya have had only 41 per cent of the normal rainfall. Arunachal Pradesh has had 47 per cent and Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura have recorded only 59cm against the required 77cm of rainfall.

Met department hopeful

In the past 25 years, Assam and Meghalaya did not have normal monsoons for 11 years. And despite the floods, Arunachal had less than normal rain for 12 years. 

All other northeastern states did not have normal rain for 20 of the 25 years. But the met department says there is still hope this year.

"In the coming few weeks we expect a break monsoon in the mainland and movement of the monsoon trough to the foothills of the Himalayas so we expect rainfall in the coming one or two weeks in northeast," said D Chakrabarti, DDGM, Guwahati Meteorological Centre.

"Whatever deficiency we have noticed is not a new thing its been continuing for the last hundred years. This fluctuation is what is called the inter-annual variability of monsoon," Chakrabarti added. 

Farmers throughout the northeast depend entirely on the rainfall. 

Crops in the fields are already dying and if the dry spell continues, the northeast may soon become one of the driest places in the country. 



Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackawanna ST
College Park, MD 20740

 1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]

Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005

weblog: http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
 		
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