Parched Latur

Blaming natural calamities for all our problems has become fashionable (

>“Indiscriminate use of ground water, Latur’s bane ”, April 19). Recently, NASA released satellite imagery to show the drastic decrease in the water table since the beginning of the Green Revolution, so how about a closer look at how we have also contributed equally and more aggressively to these problems? Excessive extraction of groundwater without measures to recharge the water table and not planting drought-resistant or drought-tolerant crops are to blame. In some States like Punjab, where there are free power schemes, excessive use of borewell water is again causing problems.

Vinay Kumar,

Ludhiana, Punjab

Is it so difficult to build a desalination plant exclusively for the hinterlands? And, is it equally difficult to lay a 14-inch pipeline to pipe water into these areas? Such a scheme, on the lines of a PPP model, should be easy to implement. Do we need such a large acreage of water-consuming crops like sugarcane? Rather than single out the IPL, activists must instead look at how water is being wasted in government bungalows, clubs, five-star hotels and resorts.

O.P. Swaminathan,

Bengaluru