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India's ruling coalition, opposition to meet as drought persists |
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April 26, 2000 NEW DELHI, APR 25 (AP) - India's major political parties were set to meet Tuesday to seek ways to fight a devastating drought that has affected 50 million people and killed thousands of cattle, officials said.
Across the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat, thousands of villages are sizzling, some areas suffering the worst conditions in a century. No human deaths have been reported due to the heat but newspapers have reported some killings by rioters desperate for water.
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee would meet leaders from all political parties at 1230 GMT to mull the drought situation, an official at the Prime Minister's Office said.
Vajpayee has ordered the railways to carry fodder to the worst-hit areas. Food and water for village people is also trickling in, though reports say large areas remain without help. Monsoon rains are expected at the end of June.
Poor village people are walking long distances on the smoldering rural expanse to collect precious and rare liters of water. Cattle deaths have been reported in thousands.
Experts have slammed India's successive governments, and the village people themselves, for doing little to fight the water crisis.
"The politician tells the people he will get them water. The people are not encouraged to develop alternatives for themselves," said Anil Agarwal, director of the Center for Science and Environment, an influential think tank.
"The results are there to see," he was quoted as saying by the Outlook magazine.
Voluntary groups in several parts of the country are trying to teach the people to harvest rainwater using simple household means, and to recharge dried up wells and underground water sources. Several of these experiments have shown brilliant results, but the success is limited to tiny pockets.
In the desert-state of Rajasthan, 26 of its 32 districts are facing famine-like conditions. Gujarat's water shortage is similar to one it suffered in 1985, when millions of cattle perished.
"If anything, the real disaster has been the policies of successive governments and bureaucrats in managing scarce water resources," The Times of India newspaper said in its editorial Tuesday.
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