RAICHUR: wo rivers-- Tungabhadra and Krishna flow in Hyderabad-Karnataka. Yet, people have to trek 4km for water. The scarcity is as much due to drought as due to the promises of the ‘sarkar’, that sound like the empty pitchers.
The dry spell has led to large-scale migration in Hyderabad-Karnataka.
“When will my parents come?” 10-year-old Lakshmi (name changed), asks her aunt every morning. Every night, she cries herself to sleep as they do not return for one more day. A resident of Dinni, a small village in Raichur district, Lakshmi’s parents, like many others from the village, are now employed as daily wage labourers in faraway Bengaluru or Hyderabad.
Locked doors and empty lanes greet visitors to Dinni. Out of a total of 3,500 residents, over 2,500 have migrated to big cities in search of work. Water scarcity, coupled with improper implementation of government schemes, left residents with no other option but to head out, those left behind say.
Similar stories can be heard all across the 32 taluks that make up the Hyderabad-Karnataka region, as consecutive years of drought and piecemeal assistance from the government, have reduced once-proud farmers to labourers, afraid to return home for fear of being ridiculed.
“The rain gods and the sarkar (government) have left us to suffer,” says Maheshappa from Bochanahalli of Koppal district.
He now works as a construction worker in Bengaluru. Two successive years of drought made his six acres of land a burden instead of a boon. “Normal years get me 12 tonnes of maize, the last two years have fetched only 2 tonnes. Life is different in the city, we do not even get leave to make it to weddings of our relatives,” he rues.
“People from Bidar migrate to Pune, those from Koppal, Raichur, Yadgir, Ballari and Kalaburagi go to Mumbai, Hyderabad, Goa, Bengaluru and even Chennai. Around 15-20% of small and marginal farmers make this journey during drought years. They all do menial jobs,” says Razak Ustaad, vice-president, Hyderabad-Karnataka Horata Samiti.
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme, framed to help precisely such farmers, is of little use here, Ustaad says. “There is poor implementation and corruption in the scheme,” he says with disgust. According to farmers, in many places, Panchayat Development Officers (PDO) assign work through agents and for lesser number of days than mandated.
With the region looking at an estimated total crop loss in 27.14 lakh hectares, schemes like the MGNREGA or the PM Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), exist only on paper. “The PMFBY money arrives very late. It should come from one kharif crop in time for the next kharif crop. But farmers who enrolled for the scheme in 2016 for kharif crop loss in that year, got the money only in 2018. The amount is also very less,” says Monappa, a farmer from Ballari.
Located in the north-eastern part of Karnataka, the arable lands of this region depend heavily on rain as irrigation projects are yet to make inroads into all corners. Farmers The New Indian Express, spoke to, peg their loss at around Rs. 15,000 per acre.
Drinking water crisis
In Kalaburagi, the divisional headquarters of the Hyderabad-Karnataka region, residents watch over their water reserves very closely. With water being supplied once every 5 days, those without borewells are left to fend for themselves or depend on kind neighbours.
Further away, a 4-5 km trek in the heat is the norm for those in villages as water schemes in rural areas are yet to be implemented. At Athnur, a village in Raichur district, people walk or use bikes or bicycles to travel to Nilgal, 4 km away, for water. “The government spent over Rs. 12 crore almost a decade back for a multi-village water scheme. Now that all the work is done, we have an empty lake and abandoned tank,” says Hanumanthraya, a resident.