70 SOCIAL SCIENTIST enactment and executive action, the ever-recurring and increasing menace of scarcity and famine as is claimed by its spokesmen ? Apart from the fact that irrigated land in Maharashtra has moved up from 5 to 7 per cent in 25 years of independence, out of the numerous percolation tanks undertaken as scarcity works, very few will be completed. For example, by June 30, 1973, the dateline set for the gradual lifting of scarcity relief, not more than half a lakh of rupees would be spent on many of the percolation tanks estimated to cost between 2 and 3 lakhs of rupees. The embankments of only a small number of tanks were pressed by mechanised rollers. As a result, most of the tanks will be washed away with the first heavy downpour of rain. The water table will remain where it was or sink lower, leaving the wells that were to benefit from these percolation tanks more vulnerable to future famines. Most of the new irrigation works taken up as scarcity projects will be given up for lack of funds. The recipients of the sumptuous loans earmarked for the so-called 'community' wells are again the 'individual9 rich peasants and capitalist landlords. It is again the affluent sections that have made away with all the loans and subsidies, evaded the levy and procurement and reaped the fabulous harvest of the price rise. Two tables from the report are reproduced below which demonstrate the impact of the famine on different sections of landholders in Sakri taluka. The first table deals with the production of sugarcane during the 'normal' year 1971-72 and the famine year 1972-73 : TABLE I SUGARCANE PRODUCTION 1971 -72 197! 2-73 Category of landholder Average cultivated area Average production Average cultivated area Average production (acres) (tons) (acres) (tons) More than 50 acres 7.3 25.60 11.7 18 (irrigated 20 acres) 30 to 50 acres 6.5 30.00 7.5 22 (irrigated 10 acres) 20 to 25 acres 1.0 20.00 1.5 15 (irrigated 5 acres) 0 to 10 acres 0.5 23.00 0.5 23 The report observes that the overall fall in production of sugarcane is 25 per cent and that the production by small landholders has not registered the fall to the same extent as they had not increased the area under the crop,