Over the past three months, both Indian and global climatologists have made dire forecasts about the upcoming drought in India, partly abated by El Nino. And now this week, I read about a major flood in southern India. The sequence of events confirms two things. First, prediction of weather is inherently very challenging, as climatologists from around the world failed in their assessment of how the monsoon season in India would turn out to be. The second lesson is that India as a nation is awfully prepared to withstand both droughts and floods. Other countries facing similar situations have solved similar problems. Agreed, other countries did not have to deal with such a huge diversity in climate and population; nonetheless a developed India should find a way to overcome regularly occurring natural calamities.
Solving any challenge requires three ingredients: idea, resources, and execution. The problem of droughts and floods is not of ideas, as many ideas, such as river interlinking or local water collection, have been proposed over the last two decades. Neither are resources an issue, as we have adequate technology and monetary resources. But the real problem is the lack of execution. What is needed is someone like Sri Sreedharan of Delhi Metro who is given sufficient authority to find and implement a feasible solution to this problem. Hopefully, we will see something happening on this front in next few years.
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