Maharashtra’s Marathwada region faces another drought year

Marathwada lies in the southeastern part of the state of Maharashtra. It covers eight districts – Aurangabad, Beed, Jalna, Latur, Nanded, Osmanabad, Parbhani and Hingoli, with a population of approximately 18 lakhs (1.8 million). Earlier, we reported that Maharashtra experienced 49 per cent less rainfall from January to February 2024, with the most affected districts being in Marathwada. 

The districts in this region experienced 100 per cent less rainfall than normal. Meanwhile, Nanded and Jalna received 49 per cent and 38 per cent less rainfall respectively. Cyclical drought is a common occurrence in this region. In 2019, more than 151 talukas of the region were declared drought-ridden. According to the Groundwater Survey and Development Agency, the region’s water levels dropped from one to three to four metres between 2014 and 2019.

The JalYukt Shivar Abhiyaan was launched in 2015 by the Maharashtra government, to make the state “drought-free by 2019”. To build cement chain canals, deepen canals and nullahs, increase water storage capacity, and promote tree plantations, among other things, the government initiative spent Rs. 9,633 crore (Rs. 96.33 billion). A Comptroller and Auditor General of India audit report criticised the lack of proper implementation of the scheme stating there was “inadequate monitoring by the state water conservation department of the project.” It also questioned how the money was used. 

No water around

On 30 September 1993, within a few seconds, Killari, a village on the north bank of the Tirna River in central India, along with scores of others, was reduced to rubble. Ten thousand people died in the worst earthquake disaster to hit India in over half a century. At the time of that earthquake, Pradeep Balkunde’s village Kaddora in Osmanabad district (now Dharashiv) was also destroyed. He recalls,

“This village had shifted to around 1 km downwards, due to the earthquake that year, now the water-bodies here do not hold much water.”

Navchaitanya Manch is an informal organisation with a collective of at least 50 people from the village, of which Balkunde is a part. The organisation is actively working to dig wells and bunds in the village.  

“I have been working for water since 2016, today we get 4-5 tankers a day from the government. People here majorly grow sugarcane and wheat which require intensive water,” he informed Ground Report.

Sanjay Shinde, a farmer from Neknoor village of Beed district is facing a challenge to grow Bajra and Jowar year after year. He said, 

“This year we have grown approximately 30% less of both crops compared to last year. The situation is severe and people are even forced to sell their cattle stocks at cheap rates.”

Government’s failure to provide relief

A paper by Watershed Organisation Trust analysed a farm pond scheme and observed that farmers, to fill up their ponds, ended up exploiting groundwater further. “The long-term strategy should be to limit the number of farm ponds, regulating their size, and most importantly ensuring that groundwater is not extracted to be stored in farm ponds,” the paper noted.

Climate change is making the state more vulnerable. Maharashtra has experienced a seven-fold and six-fold increase in drought and flood events over the past 50 years, according to a Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) report published in 2020. At least 5,000 villages experienced a drought in 2019, and over 1,300 farmers committed suicide. 

Poor implementation, governance and unscientific approach to the schemes were to be blamed, according to a research paper Challenging Today’s Water Threats for a Tenable Tomorrow: A Review of Policies and Programs in the Water Sector of Maharashtra published in March 2022. Moreover, the CAG found that groundwater exploitation increased with a spike in the number of dug wells and borewells.

“We are now forced to dig 300-400 ft borewells to get water and walk up to 3 km every day to fetch water from the drying well,” added Shinde.

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