Maharashtra's 1972 Drought and Its Employment Guarantee Legacy

Maharashtra's drought vulnerability is rooted in its physical geography. The Western Ghats block moisture-laden monsoon winds and release heavy rain on their western, coastal face. The interior Deccan plateau, including Marathwada and Vidarbha, lies in the rain shadow and receives much less rainfall in the same season. This uneven distribution has made these regions chronically drought-prone since before Maharashtra even existed as a state.

The state's institutional response to drought began early. The Drought Prone Area Programme (DPAP) was launched during the Fourth Five Year Plan to fund irrigation, land development and rural infrastructure in such regions. But it was the catastrophic 1972 drought, following three consecutive years of monsoon failure, that forced a much bigger policy response. Rural Maharashtra, then a young state formed in 1960, saw its agrarian economy collapse and witnessed large-scale migration to cities for the first time. The state government of the day responded with the Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS), resting on the idea that work is a fundamental right, an idea also reflected in Article 41 of the Directive Principles, which asks the state to secure the right to work within the limits of its economic capacity.