A drought of relief
Maharashtra continues to reel under its dry spell as the state's relief measures fall woefully short.
Don't harass farmers, expecting a bribe from them," a furious Devendra Fadnavis is telling officials of the agriculture department at a meeting he called on March 28 to review the progress of the farm ponds scheme. "This scheme has to succeed." Maharashtra's young chief minister is beleaguered by the worsening drought situation in his state, and the feedback from his team in the war room on the Mantralaya's seventh floor is discouraging. Around 20 IT grads are collating information from rural areas and relaying it to the BJP chief minister.
It has been a year since he launched the ambitious Jalyukta Shivar Abhiyan (JSA), which aimed to free 5,000 villages of water scarcity a year and make Maharashtra drought-free by 2019. The works included developing water sheds, raising groundwater levels, desilting and decentralising water sources, increasing area under irrigation, deepening and widening streams, constructing cement and earthen stop dams and digging farm ponds.
It sounded comprehensive enough. Except that the news kept getting worse. Maharashtra is seeing its worst drought in 100 years. According to the state economic survey tabled in the legislature on March 17, total rainfall in the state in 2015-59.4 per cent of the national rainfall-was deficient, the second year in a row. Kharif sowing in 2015-on 141.5 lakh hectares-was six per cent less than in 2014. Of this, 98.6 lakh ha was affected by the drought.
Parched Latur continues to make news, whether for Section 144 imposed in its water filling areas or for the train Miraj in Sangli sent 302 km to Latur with 10 wagons of 50,000 litre capacity of water. Meanwhile, the Bombay High Court drought-shamed BCCI asking how it could use 60 lakh litre to water IPL pitches when the state was reeling under drought.
In December 2015, Maharashtra got Rs 3,049 crore in aid from the Centre, higher than any other state. The state claims to have spent Rs 1,400 crore in the first year of JSA. This year, Fadnavis has announced a slew of measures (see The Fadnavis Rescue Plan). Farmers who have lost 33 per cent of their crop are now eligible for compensation, compared to 50 per cent earlier, the revision bringing 25 per cent more farmers in the ambit of compensation. In his address to the legislature, governor C. Vidyasagar Rao said the state has decided to grant Rs 10,000 crore to boost water conservation efforts in drought-prone areas. The fund will be routed as share capital assistance to the Maharashtra State Water Conservation Corporation, a nodal body executing the projects.
Why have things still not improved? For one, JSA schemes will need a good monsoon to show results. As for the rest, india today travelled to the Ahmednagar, Beed, Latur and Osmanabad districts to assess the situation. This is what it found:
Ponds of misery
At Ker in Ahmednagar district's Sangamner taluka, a village shortlisted under JSA for water conservation projects, the only work done so far is the digging of pits. Sunil Gunjal, who owns 40 acres, thanks Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari, not Fadnavis. His hopes are pinned on the widening of the Nashik-Pune National Highway, which runs along his land, not any relief under JSA. "The road contractor takes sand from my land and helps me create an artificial lake. If dug before the monsoon, it will store 1,000 crore litre water. I'll be in a position to grow pomegranate and onion then," he says.
Sayaji Jadhav, another farmer, says the government grant of Rs 50,000 for a farm pond is inadequate. "One needs Rs 5 lakh to dig a farm pond of 1 lakh litre capacity. We pay Rs 2,000 an hour for JCB machines used for digging. The grant should be at least Rs 2 lakh."
The farm pond scheme is expected to be finalised by the end of this month, April 14 being the last date for submitting applications online. Almost 70,000 farmers have applied, but the government has said only 50,000 farmers will be selected. Rs 250 crore has been set aside for the purpose.
Irrigation expert and former state planning board member H.M. Desarda terms the farm pond scheme "populist". "The government thinks it has found an 'Aladdin ka chirag' in JSA and farm ponds. The works being carried out under JSA are not scientific and integrated. Scientifically, a watershed is developed from the top of a mountain to the bottom. The government is doing the reverse. The pits dug under JSA will be filled with soil in the monsoon because of erosion." A watershed should be built in such a way that rainwater reaches the river or lake in six months, not a few hours. "There is a need to increase the soil's water-holding capacity. It can be achieved by planting more trees. The government is not paying any attention," Desarda says.
However, Madhavrao Chitale, who has headed the Maharashtra water and irrigation commission, differs. "Two goals have been set under JSA: water percolation and its storage," he says. "If bunding work is done neatly, both can be achieved."
Cattle camp controversy
Ashok Pawar, chairman of the NGO Aabaji Patil Gramin Vikas Pratishthan, has been running a cattle camp for 1,100 animals at Vatanwadi in the Ashti taluka of Beed district since February 2. He says his NGO spends a lakh a day on fodder and water for the animals. The government is supposed to pay Rs 63 per 'big animal' and Rs 32 per 'small animal' to each NGO running a cattle camp; Rs 530 crore has been allocated for the task. NGOs have to satisfy 38 conditions to start cattle camps, including Rs 5 lakh security. "The government is yet to release funds,"says Pawar. "We have to buy fodder daily from private vendors."
An official from revenue minister Eknath Khadse's department says funds are not being released on suspicion of a scam in cattle camps. Ashti taluka alone, which comprises 183 villages, has 116 cattle camps. In February, a cabinet sub-committee under Khadse had directed that fodder camps in Osmanabad, Beed and Latur be shut down because there was enough fodder for the next three months. The move drew considerable flak, and created bad blood between Fadnavis and Khadse. Khadse later said their decision was open to review.
Tanker trouble
In the last week of March, an activist at Yedashi village in Osmanabad district, hurled a bottle at visiting state education minister Vinod Tawde. The residents were angry because the water tanker would come to their village only past midnight. The timing was changed. But on April 4, the tanker, carrying 12,000 litres of water, came in at 11 am and was empty in seven minutes! The villagers climbed on, used water pipes to fill their vessels. "We get water once a week," says deputy sarpanch Gajanan Nalawade. " We are intimated an hour before."
Interestingly, Yedashi, Osmanabad's biggest village, with a population of 30,000, had 24-hour supply till two years ago. But the direct pipeline the gram panchayat had from Terna barrage fell into disuse after it dried up.
Free-for-all grain?
Satish Havale, a resident of Dahiphal in Osmanabad district, says he caught 17 trucks of foodgrain meant for PDS being sold illegally in the open market. "The shop owners sell wheat at Rs 18 and rice at Rs 14 a kg," he says. Wheat and rice are available at Rs 2 and Rs 3 a kg respectively at PDS shops Agricultural labourers too prefer to sell half their subsidised grain to traders, who pay them Rs 14 a kg for wheat, Rs 12 a kg for rice. One person is entitled to 5 kg wheat and 3 kg rice a month.
Debt row
Total farmer debt in the state is estimated to be Rs 25,000 crore, including loans from banks and parivate moneylenders. Fadnavis had said he would rid five lakh farmers of moneylenders' debt. However, a reply sought by opposition leader Dhananjay Munde under RTI revealed that only 1,69,907 farmers had benefitted till February-end.
"Not one farmer in the worst-affected Latur, Osmanabad and Beed districts has benefitted," Munde says. "In Parbhani and Hingoli districts, only 40 and 57 farmers became free of debt. In contrast, most farmers in Fadnavis's Vidarbha region benefitted."
The cash crunch has also led to the rise of unauthorised moneylenders in Marathwada. BJP president in district headquarter Jalna, Virendra Dhoka, says interest rates had gone up to 20 per cent. But, he asserts, "Farmers are spending the loan amount gambling." Jivajirao Patil, a farmer from Latur, dismisses this. "The number is very small, maybe three in a 100."
Khadse feels the government is on top of the drought situation. "Water's been made available from every possible source. The exam fee of students in drought-hit areas has been waived off. We'll also pay a lakh without condition or inquiry to the kin of a farmer who has committed suicide," he says. Noble intentions, if only there was no gap between promise and delivery.