Faces of Marathwada Drought and a ‘Peepli Live’ Moment in Latur

While people in Marathwada wait anxiously for water, leaders don’t shy away from photo-ops, writes Vivian Fernandes

By the end of last monsoon season, it was amply clear that Marathwada would be facing a drinking water crisis. Rainfall in the region was below normal for the second year in a row. The deficit in 2015 was forty percent. One had travelled through the region in the third week of September. (See those reports here and here).

Sporadic heavy rainfall had deceptively covered the landscape in a patina of green. It is all parched brown now with tiny patches of irrigated grass and sugarcane. While the incidence of suicides has risen, a sense of resignation is not palpable. Barren fields are being ploughed in anticipation of a good monsoon. But a few difficult weeks lie ahead.

Long Wait for Water

Gaikwad Shivdas Kerba had placed fifteen pots and two jerry cans at a municipal tap at Latur’s Vivekananda chowk at 10 in the morning. At 6 pm the insurance agent was still awaiting his turn. His wife had relieved him in between. Their three school-going children often join the vigil. Once filled, the water is transported by autorickshaw to their tenement about two kilometres away. The drill is repeated every other day. For flushing and washing, they buy 200 litres from elsewhere.

Also in the queue was Manisha Bharat Tenkale, a construction worker, who joined in at about 2 pm and did not expect to leave before 11 at night. Mangal Sonwane, who works at the city’s wholesale mandi, filled two pots after waiting for ten hours.

At Aravi village, near city’s railway station, the queue begins a little past midnight. Arvind Vithal Sabne, a class 10 student, is usually the first to mark the presence as his family lives close by.

Warnings Were Ignored

The drought is not an equaliser; it has a class bias. Those at the bottom of the pyramid suffer the most. Latur’s bustling traffic is punctuated with tankers on tractor-trolleys, which buzz as purposively as bees. But they are beyond the reach of those who live one day at a time.

A writer said all happy families are alike, but unhappy families are unique in their misery. In Latur, those affected by the drought have the same story of disrupted routines, abridged workdays and truncated wages.

Life ebbs in the heat. The sun saps vitality. A more thoughtful civic administration could have reduced the drudgery and anxiety by enlisting volunteers and with better management. If it had curbed wasteful water use when the warning signals were flashing last year, some of the distress could have been avoided.

Photo-Ops by Leaders

For politicians a drought is a photo opportunity. Eknath Khadse, who holds many ministerial portfolios, including that of relief and rehabilitation, arrived for a ‘coconut-breaking’ quickie at Latur’s railway station in a half-kilometre long motorcade. The occasion was the inauguration of a set of 12 machines that would pump four lakh litres of water every hour, procured from a distance of 340 km by train, to the city’s filtration unit.

Work on a three-km long ductile-iron pipeline to that facility was in progress but the minister was in a hurry. The brand-building exercise turned awry as the local media cried foul about water wasted for the minister’s helipad.

Contractor GG Makne’s team was working overtime to complete the Rs 3 crore project. On completion, it would help Latur cope with such emergencies in future. The contractor’s partner said Latur was witnessing a ‘Peepli Live’ moment alluding to a movie about a farmer’s threat of suicide attracting national media attention and compelling politicians to act.  He was being uncharitable.

Of the eight Marathwada districts, Beed, Latur and Parbhani are the worst affected, with 50-54 percent monsoon rainfall deficit. But Latur city has a population of close to four lakh – higher than that of Parbhani town and double that of urban Beed.

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

(This is part one of the ground report from Marathwada)

Also Read:
Marathwada Drought: Water Train Only a Band-Aid Solution
India’s Drought Born Out of Bad Policies and Apathy for the Poor