While India is under its worst drought in 20 years, the desert city of Jodhpur also known as Blue City, long a popular tourist spot, is slowly flooding because of the Indira Gandhi canal, a massive irrigation infrastructure that ‘diverts water from the northern “breadbasket” state of Punjab down to Haryana and Rajasthan.’ Jodhpur, the second largest city in the Indian state of Rajasthan, is geologically a catch basin of excess water, but the state of Rajasthan, itself, is suffering from depleted ground water in this time of drought. ‘Recent NASA satellite imagery suggests a foot a year is being lost.’

The monsoons are extremely important to India, a hugely agricultural country. With the monsoons providing 80 percent of the country’s water, approximately 450 million Indian farmers depend on these seasonal rains. Only two thirds of the average rainfall expected this year did arrive. And with the monsoons being delayed as they were, it was ‘far too late to save much of the crops.’

Only an hour outside Jodhpur, farmers are resigned to the fact that only 5 to 10 percent of their millet, mung, and mothbean crops will survive. This means that their staple food will have to be purchased.

But what nature cannot provide, the local government’s political will can. ‘Nearby villages are due to be connected to the canal.’ To even out the water supply, large pipes are being readied to siphon off Jodhpur’s rising waters to nearby villages. Such a plan will be both beneficial to flooding Jodhpur and its drought-stricken environs.

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Via globalpost