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This story is from January 24, 2019

As crops and jobs dry up, kids in Marathwada the worst hit

Maharashtra faces its third drought in five years. It has swept through 42% of the state’s talukas, affecting 82 lakh farmers. More than half the main crop— the kharif crop—has been wrecked. Among the worst affected areas is the dry belt of Marathwada. Almost 40% of the 112 talukas that face a severe drought located here. Dam water levels are down to 13% of capacity.
As crops and jobs dry up, kids in Marathwada the worst hit
Key Highlights
  • Maharashtra faces its third drought in five years
  • It has swept through 42% of the state’s talukas, affecting 82 lakh farmers
  • The children wake up 5 am to scour the nearby wells for water for at least two hours
BEED: Ahead of Republic Day, students of the Kotan zilla parishad school are busy preparing to write an essay on the searing drought that has engulfed their village and the state. When asked what she will say, Pratiksha Pachpute breaks down.
“If there was no drought,” says the 14-yearold, her face stained with tears, “my parents would still be with me.” Life has changed for the 8th standard student after her parents migrated, like most farmers in her village in Beed district, to the sugarcane factories of western Maharashtra and Karnataka.
They left shortly before Diwali, seasonal migrants who will cut cane there for six months. Most huts in the village are deserted, their wooden doors bolted. Only the elderly and children have been left behind, with a few sacks of grain and some money. “Usually, 50% of our village of 2,300 migrates. This year, it is 80%. Both crops were ruined and there is no work under the employment guarantee scheme,” says Kotan sarpanch Mahesh Khengre.
Pratiksha and her younger brother have been left with their grandparents. The children wake up 5 am to scour the nearby wells for water for at least two hours. Then it is a one-hour walk to the school. After the day ends by 4.30pm, Pratiksha heads home to do the cooking. “If my parents were there, I would have more time to study,” says the teenager who dreams of becoming an engineer. Now she is not sure she will be able to finish school.
Maharashtra faces its third drought in five years. It has swept through 42% of the state’s talukas, affecting 82 lakh farmers. More than half the main crop— the kharif crop—has been wrecked. Among the worst affected areas is the dry belt of Marathwada. Almost 40% of the 112 talukas that face a severe drought are located here. Dam water levels are down to 13% of capacity; several have run dry. With the kharif crop ravaged by the drought, many have chosen not to plant the winter or rabi crop. Only 51% of the winter crop has been sown. Marathwada is known for the seasonal migration of cane cutters. Roughly 10-15 lakh small farmers migrate each year after sowing their crop, with Beed being the largest hub. But this year, unions say, the drought has pushed migrations up by 30% to 50 %.
Farmers left as early as July instead of October. “In our estimation, migrations could touch 20 lakh,” says Keshvrao Andhale of the Sugarcane Cutters and Transporters Union, a former MLA from the BJP. Many have migrated not just for work but also because fodder and water has run out for their cattle. However, the state says migration has not risen. “There hasn’t been a rise in migrations. The MNREGA work sufficient and panchayat samitis have been directed to respond to the demand for work,” counters Beed collector M D Singh. Yet, like Bhagabai Shirwale who is landless and works as a farm hand, she not found a job since last June. “The fields are barren. What work will the farmers give us?” she asks despondently.

“We are surviving on bhakri and chutney. Luckily, the children get food in school,” she says. The zilla parishad school is a lifeline for the children here. They give three meals a day to the children of migrant canecutters under a state scheme. “They usually eat nothing till they get there first meal here by 9am,” says school teacher Babasaheb Ware. “These children are dealing with so much: poverty, the absence of parents for upto 6 months and adult responsibilities,” says Ware. The cane-cutters have helped finance the school’s paintwork and playground.
“Where have your parents gone?” we ask a class of 5-year olds. “To the karkhana,” they chorus back. Their day begins at 5am, four hours before school starts. “I go to fetch water to the wells nearby with my neighbours. I carry a small pot,” says 5-year-old Satyasheela Vishnu Puri who is in Standard 1. “I make at least five trips back and forth.” Don’t her arms ache? “I am used to it,” she says with a brave smile. As the drought progresses and migrants return, conditions could worsen. “There is not enough cane and the factories could close by February. Once the canecutters return to no work, the real crisis will begin,” says Andhale.
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