 Drought in Tamilnadu
1983
 I joined as District Collector of South Arcot District during March 1983. Tamilnadu was in the grip of a serious drought the likes of which the State has not faced since then. At that time I was the District Collector of Madras and I had to report at Cuddalore, the headquarters of South Arcot, on 3rd of March.
At the break of the dawn, my husband Dr. Rajkumar drove me from Madras to Cuddalore via Tambaram, Chingleput, Madurantakam, Tindivanam and Pondicherry. By the time I reached Cuddalore I was completely heart broken. For the entire stretch of 208 kms. I did not see a blade of grass. The normally lush and green paddy fields looked dry and desolate.
I arrived in Cuddalore, not to a warm welcome but straight to attend the District Drought Management Committee meeting. Within minutes of chairing the meeting the enormity of the drought situation had dawned on me. I was not to enjoy a District posting. I was to fight drought, lack of water, lack of food grains, lack of employment.
 We were to start drought work immediately to generate employment and provide food and water to people. For doing all that we had to plan, have man-power and machinery and arrange funding.
In Tindivanam and Villipuram most of the new bore wells sunk were proving a failure. One day we would face shortage of rigs for digging wells and on another day we would face shortage of pipes. There were daily demonstrations of ‘breaking the empty pots’ by women, to be dealt with.
The day used to start by reading enormous amount of mail we used to get from the villages from all parts of the district about lack of drinking water or food grains. We used to decide which were the most desperate villages and divert the meagre resources of rigs, etc. to those places to start digging operations. We were also constantly opening new outlets for supplying rations.
Rest of my time was spent between sending telegrams to Fort St. George (the seat of the government) for more money, more rigs, more hand pumps, more employment programmes, more food and rations; and providing drinking water to every nook and corner of the district by lorries, by bullock carts, by cycles, by whatever means.
Meanwhile, the drinking water scarcity in Madras City became so acute that for the first time we sent water from Neyveli Lignite mines in South Arcot to Madras, by trains. While Lignite is mined in Neyveli, enormous quantities of water automatically springs out from the mines. This water came to the rescue of the district as well as Madras city.
I realised that large scale filling-up of water tanks, encroachments and constructions on the water courses had resulted in aggravating the drought situation and depleting the ground water. Through the drought work we rectified many of these defects and restored some of the traditional water conserving mechanisms. We deepened hundreds of tanks, constructed percolation ponds, desilted channels, dug over two thousand bore wells and several hundred open wells. All this had to be done in just a year's time.
Normally, I left home at the break of dawn to inspect the progress of drought and employment generation work and returned home by midnight. Sometime I used to drop on my bed even without removing my shoes. My hair was full of fine dust. For months, I could not find time to wash it. As a result I lost a lot of hair for which my mother has not forgiven me.
 It was the most hectic period of my life. Sometimes it took days for people to get water, food or work but they trusted us because we were trying and they appreciated every little thing we did.
I cannot forget two people who gave me strength. One was my ‘Drought Tehsildar’ who used to live in the control room set up in my house. (I don't think he ever slept) and the other one was Mr. Subramaniam, the Divisional Engineer PWD, Irrigation, Villipuram Division. He executed the most outstanding and superior quality drought work in the State. He became a glowing example of what PWD can achieve. Their work was seen and appreciated by dozens of VIPs who came to see our drought work both from Government of Tamilnadu and Government of India.
My moment of satisfaction came when we awarded both these gentlemen gold medals on the occasion of Republic day 1984. But for the people like them could not have made it through those difficult times.
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