Even hope is drying up in stony B'khand

Lalitpur: The month of Chaitra, according to Hindu calendar, marks onset of summer. In Lalitpur, maximum temperature has already shot past 44 degree Celsius. The month of 'Jyeshta', falling in June when summer peaks, is two months away, but hand pumps and bore wells are running dry and muddy beds of parched lakes have caked and have large craters.
In terms of agriculture too, the past two years have been disastrous for Bundelkhand in general and Lalitpur in particular.Lalitpur farmers chiefly grow wheat, beside moong and urad daals. In Pali, another rocky interior of the Lalitpur district, farmer Shambhu said, "Of the three quintals wheat I had sown, I could recover only one-and-half quintal worth of seeds. There was no water to irrigate our land." Shambhu is not alone. Sundar, another farmer in Pali has left the dried stubs of wheat on his few acres. At a time farmers should be tilling the ground and prepapring for the next crop, his land, like several acres surrounding it, lie unattended. "There is no point in tilling the land. There is no water. I don't have resources to get a tubewell bored so I have decided not to sow anything," said Sundar.
For the uninitiated, Lalitpur often presents a confusing picture. Flanked on the east, west and south by Madhya Pradesh, this backward district of Bundelkhand has 12 dams, including the towering Govind Sagar, Mata Tila and Rajghat dams and the smaller Sajnam, Jamini and Lower Rohini. If you drive into Lalitpur from Jhansi, it's not uncommon to spot large pools of water, sparkling in the April sun. The pools of water may exist, but for the largely rural population, it's a mirage.
Uttar Pradesh's irrigation department, the key agency that controls construction and maintenance of these dams, faces an uphill challenge. "Lalitpur's chief problem is that the terrain is rocky so bore wells are expensive to dig, while the stony earth does not throw up enough water over a sustained period. Also, rivers in the region are rain-fed and it is difficult to store water and ensure its optimum usage. Finally-and this concerns all of Bundelkhand and UP-while we assess the rate at which we withdraw ground water, its depletion is a subject that does not get the attention it deserves," said Akhtar Ali Farooqi, executive committee member of the UP Engineers Association. Despair hangs like a thick layer on Lalitpur. In Balabehat, locals turn to 'Sankat Mochan' Hanuman, their reigning deity for deliverance from danger. Local resident Jagdish Rai claims a new statue of Hanuman springs from the earth every time UP gets a new district. Despite 75 statues of Sankat Mochan in their midst, Balabehat's prayers are falling on deaf ears.
In Pali, after months of pleading with the local administration to supply water, the paan growers have now pooled in resources to build a temple dedicated to the serpent god. A woman from the resident community Krishna Chaurasia said, "Our appeal to the government and administration has got us nothing. 'Naag devta' is our last hope so we are building a temple dedicated to the deity."
Abject poverty, low and poor crop yield, depleting ground water levels, and joblessness have also caused the crime rate to shoot up in the region. Unemployed youth are resorting to petty thefts and looting passersby to make ends meet. Now, even hope is drying on the parched lands of Bundelkhand.