Latur locks up tanks to curb water theft

LATUR: It wasn’t yet dawn when noises drew Meena Tekale out of her one-storey home — just in time to see the group of women disappearing over the compound wall. These burglars carried only buckets. All they wanted was her water.
Across her neighbourhood in Latur’s Prakashnaghar, household tanks are padlocked against water raids. "After that incident, I locked mine, too. Here people want water, not gold," jokes Tekale.
Water has become a closely guarded resource in Latur city which receives municipal supply only once every 15 days.The Dhanegaon dam which supplies water here has been at "dead storage level" for the last four years because of the meagre rains.
But this year the water crisis is much worse: the arid Marathwada belt where Latur is located has reported the highest rain deficit in the entire country.
Desperate residents have no option but to buy water. Over the years, the scarcity has spawned a lucrative water bazaar. Anyone who owns a functioning bore-well or is involved in the transporting or bottling the resource is tapping into the multi-crore water economy.
"The water market in Latur city has a turnover of at least Rs 10 lakh a day. The tanker lobby alone accounts for business worth Rs 7-8 lakhs per day," says Atul Deulgaonkar, joint secretary of the Forum of Environmental Journalists of India, based in Latur.

Prakash Mundada at Sunrich Aqua, among the few authorized bottling plants in Latur city. (TOI photo: Shaikh Aziz)
Omji Padile, who owns a private well is considered something of a water-lord in these parts. Tankers line up at his door for their daily supply. "I get 15-20 tankers a day and charge Rs 100 each," he says. That works out to Rs 2000 a day.
The few borewells that continue to draw water have become money-spinners. The rates could range from 300 for an hour of water in the city to Rs 3 for a pot of water in the nearby villages.
Over 80 tankers ply in Latur daily making multiple trips to serve the 5 lakh population. In this long dry season, tanker rates are shooting up. "This year we are charging Rs 600-700 per tanker. Last year we charged Rs 400-Rs 500," says tanker owner Anil Bhande.
Business is also booming for those in the bottled water business. Over 100 drinking water purification and bottling plants have sprung up around the city, supplying 3-4 lakh litres of water a day, industry sources say. Most of these are unregulated and the quality of water they supply is not tested.
Sunrich Aqua is the largest bottled water plant in the area and among the few authorised units. Its owner Pramod Mundada was a milk trader who sensed a burgeoning business opportunity. He started selling drinking water in 2005 and set up his purification and bottling plant in 2008.

Farmer Sanjay Jagtap who has a borewell, sells water to tankers. (TOI photo: Shaikh Aziz)
"Our business has grown by more than 100% since we started," says Mundada. The company records sales worth Rs 1.60 lakh daily, selling 55,000 litres of bottled water in and around Latur. Unlike the unregulated operators though, Sunrich has to shell out duties and taxes to the government.
Yet by now, Latur’s profit-making water trade is also feeling the heat of the rain deficit. With water sources evaporating fast, the state government is even considering transporting water by rail from Pandharpur.
Tankers which usually shut down during the monsoon got more business by working additional months. "But now borewells are drying up. We are getting water from the village borewells located 5 kilometres away. We don’t know how long the water will last,"says Bhande.