Madhya Pradesh Must Act Fast To Save a Drying Bundelkhand

In Bundelkhand, drinking water is often fetched from more than a kilometre away.

Life is nasty in the best of times in Bundelkhand, but with two consecutive monsoon failures, it has taken a turn for the worse.

There is a severe shortage of fodder. Drinking water may not last the summer and while people may not be going hungry, nutrition levels have fallen low in the region.

Yogendra Yadav, Leader, Swaraj Abhiyan

Swaraj Abhiyan petitioned the Supreme Court to force state governments to abide by the drought manual and provide relief to those affected. Based on this petition, the court on 1 February rebuked the Gujarat government for not implementing the National Food Security Mission (NFSM) which entitles very poor person to a certain quantity of highly-subsidised cereals every month.

Yadav is the co-founder of AAP and floated Swaraj Abhiyan along with advocate Prashant Bhushan after their expulsion from the party.

Water Scarcity

Distress was not apparent as one drove through Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh and Tikamgarh, Chhatarpur and Panna districts of Madhya Pradesh. Farmers had ploughed vast stretches in hope of sowing the rabi (winter) crop, but gave in to restraint when winter rains failed to materialise.

The Worst of Times

• Bundelkhand – covering parts of UP and Madhya Pradesh – is in the throes of drought-like condition.
  
• Certain crops have been sown, but it is unlikely that the yield will be good given the water shortage, compounded by poor rainfall.
  
• Agricultural consumption (for tractors and pumps) has declined in Jhansi, UP.
  
• Dams have little water, forcing farmers to use water drawn from tube wells, which is not enough for irrigation.
  
• Drinking water is fetched from more than a kilometre away as hand pumps at some places have gone dry.
  
• Unlike UP, MP has not declared any of the districts as drought affected.
  
• MP is providing cheap grain as part of the food security mission, but there are no MNREGA work camps.
  

But there were also swatches of green and specks of yellow. Wheat and mustard were being grown with trickling water from tube wells in areas abutting ponds, lakes and rivers which are drying. A mid-January shower has helped.

But it is unlikely that wheat sown as late as December will yield full-sized grains as the heat builds up. Yields and quality of both crops will suffer. It is doubtful whether farmers will recover little more than the money they have invested.

Demand for Tractors, Pumps Down

Diesel sales at a petrol pump at Luhari, in Jhansi’s Mauranipur tehsil, convey a mixed picture. The volume sold between October and December 2015 was 123,000 litres, less than in the corresponding period the previous year.

But between June and September sales were higher in three out of four months over the year-ago period. Pump manager Raju Pal said agricultural consumption (for tractors and pumps) had indeed declined.

In the past year, 415 farmers killed themselves in the UP part of Bundelkhand. In the past year, there were 32 chakka jams (highway blockades), but the government is not willing to accept that farmers are dying because of the drought.

Shiv Narayan Singh Parihar, Leader, Bhartiya Kisan Union (Bhanu)

Bhartiya Kisan Union is a breakaway faction of the body founded by the late Mahendra Singh Tikait. At Rajpura village in Jhansi’s Bangra block, farmers were growing crops on the bed of the Pachwara dam.

The 30-foot high dam had little water; instead farmers drew water from tubewells. At the edge of the dam, Parmanand Kushwaha, a sharecropper, was irrigating a patch of two acres with water from a tubewell belonging to the land owner.

“We sowed thinking if we get wheat it is fine, if not we will get fodder at least,” Kushwaha said.

Poor Infrastructure

Unlike Marathwada in Maharashtra, which faced a drought last year, Bundelkhand has poor infrastructure. Repeated monsoon failures have also weakened its capacity to cope. Records at Saprar dam in Bangra block built during the first Five Year Plan, reveal severe monsoon deficiency in seven of the past 15 years.

The first three years of the past decade had annual rainfall of between 1,064 mm and 622 mm. In the next four years it ranged between 265 mm and 347 mm. The year 2008 received 965 mm, a level not seen since. In 2014, it rained 290 mm.

Despite the severe shortfall, people could cope, because the reservoirs had been recharged by 827 mm rainfall the previous year. While last year’s rainfall of 327 mm is higher than the previous year, it is causing greater hardship because the reservoirs are depleted.

The dam has not reached the full supply level of 735 feet (above mean sea level) since 2013. The maximum it touched in the past two years was 725 and 722 feet, respectively.

No Farming in Chhatarpur

At Pagara in Chhatarpur’s Bijawar tehsil, there has been no farming for the past three years, said Rajabhai Ahirwal. Sunita Ahirwal said the men, including her brother, work in Delhi as masons or helpers on construction sites. Drinking water is fetched from more than a kilometre away as the hand pump at the habitation has gone dry.

There were locked houses too at Kupi village, also in Bijawar, which has a sizeable number of adivasis. The water level is high in some of the wells, but it will soon deplete, residents said. One well had dried up.

Chhotalal Saunr, said people have to share five acres among three families. Some members have migrated to Delhi for work. Others sell a root called gundla dug out of a river bed. They gather about 10 kg a day, which sells for Rs 20 a kg. There is no MNREGA work, says Saunr, though they all have job cards. Dal is a rarity at meals; it is usually saag (greens) and potatoes.

Baking on Tubewells

At Jijh village in Panna district, a little distance from Ken river, Rammohan Tripathi was planting onions on three acres of land leased on an equal profit-sharing basis.

Onion requires a lot of water, but Tripathi is banking on a 100-foot deep tubewell to bail him out, though wells on the banks of the nearby Madasan river have failed. The urad (black gram) and til (sesame) he had sown in the kharif season had come a cropper.

Scarce water is selling at a premium. At Alpur in Tikamgarh, Brijlal Yadav pays Rs 3,000 per irrigation for nine bighas. He waters the wheat crop thrice, which will set him back by Rs 9,000.

MP Government in Denial

When this report was being written, Swaraj Abhiyan was conducting a survey of 64 villages of 32 tehsils in the Madhya Pradesh side of drought-affected Bundelkhand. Its survey of the UP side released late last year compelled the state government to act.

Measures to assure cattle fodder, drinking water and wage work were announced late in December. Madhya Pradesh has not declared any of the districts as drought affected, unlike UP. While it is providing cheap grain as part of the food security mission, there are no MNREGA work camps. The drinking water situation is also more precarious in MP, Yadav said.

But beyond relief measures, Bundelkhand needs measures to insure against such calamities. Vigorous measures to conserve rainwater, when it is available, should be undertaken. “We need development, not a separate state,” said Pawan Rajawat, who owns a residential school in Chhatarpur. The drought should be used as an opportunity to check the ravages of those that will surely follow.

(Vivian Fernandes is editor of www.smartindianagriculture.in.)