IPL vs drought

Court is right to express its concern. But it may have framed a false opposition.

With just a day left for the inaugural match, the shadow of the Marathwada drought has fallen on the 

Indian Premier League (IPL). On Thursday, the Bombay High Court cleared the inaugural match to be 

held in Mumbai on Saturday, but the fate of 19 others, scheduled to be held in Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur, 

will be decided only after April 12. A day earlier, the court had asked the government: Should the cricket 

tournament be held when people in drought-hit areas are going without drinking water for days? In framing

the question in this manner, the court may well be doing injustice to the serious issue it actually seeks to

 address.

It is true that pitch maintenance requires enormous amounts of water — on an average, one lakh litres 

of water is used up per day in the run-up to a match. But so do many other activities that may appear 

less compelling when compared to the water needs of households and farmers. It is facile to draw a link 

between drought relief and socio-economic activity-as-usual and insist that the latter be summarily brought

 to a halt for the former. Such a demand encourages false oppositions which eventually distract from the 

search for the real solutions. Water, especially in times of drought, needs to be used judiciously and the 

Maharashtra government has done well to initiate some steps to regulate its supply and consumption in 

the context of the crisis in the state. In the longer run, the economics of water extraction, distribution and

 consumption is a complex phenomenon that defies one-stop prescriptions. The IPL is a massive economic 

activity that provides livelihood to thousands of people and its scale necessitates meticulous planning. To

 disrupt its organisation so close to the event would lead to logistical problems — without delivering on the

 real intent, which is helping Marathwada overcome its water crisis.

The immediate drinking water supply issue must be met by improving the delivery of potable water using

 more tankers, water trains and other delivery channels. Going ahead, localised water conservation

 measures, including check dams and farm ponds, should be encouraged. Meanwhile, debate on drought 

should steer clear of two-minute, too-tidy solutions.