maharashtra is facing a severe shortage of water this year.you have to visit the drought affected area in maharashtra. frame 10 questions to interview a farmer to know his agonies
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In the first week of April, when children across Maharashtra were busy studying for their school final exams, children from drought affected areas were helping their parents get water and fodder for the cattle at home.
“During the drought of the previous year, we had sent the cattle to my uncle’s village. This time, I will be taking care of them at the cattle camp,” said Samrat Katkar from Bhalavadi village of Satara district. Katkar wants to become a soldier or a policeman when he grows up—following in the footsteps of a large number of villagers who send one family member to purse either career in droughtprone villages.
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Bhalavadi is one of the thousands of villages across Maharashtra where rains have failed both kharif and rabi crops leaving no fodder or water for the cattle to survive.The present drought is the toughest ever due to severe water shortage. Once every 8 to 10 days, tankers supply drinking water to the parched villages in Maharashtra. There are 4,300 tankers deployed for the task.“Both kharif and rabi crops failed this year. There is not only water but also food shortage. When villagers start returning in the next fortnight as sugar mills close operations, the water we are getting by tankers will just not be enough for everyone,” says Sandip Pawar, a school teacher in Pimpalvandi village of Beed district. This district is one of those from where people migrate every year to work as sugarcane harvesting labour.Vishnu Jangam (name changed) from Sangola taluka of Solapur district is one of the rare farmers from this perpetually drought affected area, who is blessed with good water supply to his well. Jangam is still holding jowar he had grown in the Kharif season of 2018. “I will sell it after June when people from the distilleries that make liquor from grain come to our village offering a much higher rate than the market rate,” he says.Liquor is made from grains in Marathwada during the monsoon months and from sugarcane during winters and summers as the water contained in the cane can be used to run the mills. Locally, the region is called Tankerwada as people and animal survive on tanker water. But Tankerwada is also Liquorwada as it sends tankers full of liquor to the rest of the country. Global beer and liquor brands such as Carlsberg, United Breweries, Foster India and many other are located in Aurangabad district of Marathwad.The severe drought has not just affected the crops, it has also hurt cattle farming and its associated economy.Khanderao Padvalkar, secretary of Sangola market committee has not seen such a drastic fall in cattle prices in his service in 25 years. “Cattle prices have slumped by 50% during the past six months and will continue to slide as there are no buyers. This has never happened before. During earlier droughts, farmers could keep their cattle even during droughts at the cattle camps. However, this year, not a single cattle camp has started in Sangola forcing farmers to sell their cattle,” said Padvalkar.The reluctance to set up cattle camps could in part be because of the incumbent state government’s finger pointing to the largescale corruption in fodder camps set up by the previous Congress NCP government in Maharashtra and on its part being extra careful, delaying measures to provide relief to farmers. The BJPShiv Sena had charged the previous regime with inflating the number of cattle present at the camps, showing cattle in the name of the people who do not exist, not providing enough fodder from the money given by the government to the NGOs or people who run the camps.“Though we had received approval to start the fodder camps, we were waiting as the fodder camp started by an NGO was keeping the situation under control,” said an official from the collectorate at Satara. The officer hinted farmers could have resorted to severe protests had the NGO not started the cattle camp.While there is a ban on slaughter of cattle, many say it exists only on paper. Farmers speaking in hushed voices allege a large number of cattle have been sold at dirt cheap prices and land up at slaughter houses as cattle camps haven’t been started yet in many areas or were started too late.HOW CATTLE HELP FARMERS