Dubbing drought a "man-made disaster" rather than a natural calamity, experts on Friday said measures taken by central and state governments to deal with it are failing in providing relief.
"There's no relation between monsoon and drought. The current situation has arise due to poor management of water," environment journal "Dawn to Earth" managing editor Richard Mahapatra said here at a symposium held by NGO Action Aid.
"Time has come to raise demands for establishing control of the communities over water. This is the only solution for the drought," he added.
As per Action Aid, over 2,55,000 villages across 255 districts and 10 states are suffering from drought that has affected over 33 crore people.
Urging a revision in the crop system, agricultural policy analyst Devendra Sharma stressed the need of a reasonable price policy and business model.
"Our policies are GDP centric which avoid the conditions such as drought, because they don't consider such situations. It's very important to re-evaluate the existing service and situation-based system," he said.
More From This Section
--IANS
kd/vd