It does rain very small in Palamu as dry hours outlengthen the minutes of the rain here.
The rain that Palamu has have these days in August is just enough to get the grasses wet and pucca roads to evaporate while this small rain does cause rural kachha roads only slushy.
Mumtaz Ahmad Khan a prosperous farmer said the rains are of no value at this stage when no variety of paddy of even the shortest duration fruition will be any successful. It is all gone Khan said.
Shiv Kumar Gupta a resident of Daltonganj said these small bouts of rains have done one thing. It has helped snakes to come out slithering from the holes! Snakes love humid condition and it is now very much in Palamu.
Pinki Devi lives on the bank of the river Koel. Her worries are that she does not hear anymore the croaking of the frogs. She is right in her own way. Frogs are not around. Blame the rain - is the common refrain.
Much the rainless days and nights have rendered lives here difficult, there is no dearth of enthusiasm among the visitors who are making a beeline for the Disney Land fair going on at the Shivajee Maidan here in Daltonganj.
The entry ticket is priced 20 rupees per individual and on an average 12,000 to 13,000 people are visiting the Disney Land mela every day. Talk to any of the visitors here and they will tell you one thing. It is 'Palamu is drought and drought Palamu'. So nothing much to worry giving an impression that people here are impervious to the bouts of drought.
Ranjit Kumar Yadav recalled saying when he was just 15 years old in 1991 - 92 he saw drought in Palamu. He said it was severe. He narrated how his mother used to have Saag for the family for two months. Yadav is very much worried about his cattle as to from where to bring fodder for them this time.
There is a difference of viewing at the drought. The Leftist squarely blame the government for this. The saffron party blames the green party. But no political party is any ready to concede that drought is not only a rain deficit trigger calamity but it is also a man made disaster.
Here the Pioneer has researched over the years. Big irrigational projects like Mandal dam, Ouranga water reservoir Kanhar water reservoir (in Garhwa district) all hang in balance for over 4 or 5 decades.
Again in 2019 the PM Narendra Modi had launched a very ambitious scheme of bringing in river water of Koel Sone to Garhwa and Palamu but it is still in its nascent stage after 3 years of its launching.
The collapse of the water supply through canal is another factor besides huge erosion of the agricultural land by the river Koel Sone under the Hussainabad sub division has added more injuries to the farmers.
Drought proofing of Palamu has always been a fire fighting measure here and never any sustainable long term planning of the drought proofing has been done. The result is Palamu convulses when it has scantiest of the rain said sources. End