The heart of Maharashtra is bone dry and the drought in the rich sugar belt is a bitter tale of rich vs poor, of a manmade calamity that bares the misuse of political clout to deny the not-so-powerful the very basic amenity and a lack of official vision. In this parched state, river water is allegedly being devoured by those with the right political connect, while thousands are being forced to make do with water supplied by tankers once a week, sometimes even once a month. As authorities keep diverting water from the rivers to industries owned by the influential, including MLAs and MPs and their kin, anger is boiling over in dry Solapur and Aurangabad.
Solapur, the home turf of several political heavyweights including Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde and state Home Minister R R Patil, is the biggest of the drought-affected districts.
Trouble started in January this year when despite an announcement by the authorities, no water was released from the Ujani dam for drought-hit farmers of Solapur district. Enraged, over 400 villagers — mostly farmers and their families — hailing from nine talukas of Solapur marched to the gates of Mantralaya in February, demanding their rightful share of water, after their 23-day-long dharna in Mumbai’s Azad Maidan, failed to elicit a response from the authorities.
The delegation returned abused and empty-handed. “People who had come asking for water were mercilessly beaten up by the police. The water is being diverted to industries such as distilleries and dairies. For instance Dynamix Dairy, a company owned by a family considered close to Sharad Pawar, is getting water from Ujani Dam,” claimed Aam Admi Party activist Anjali Damania.
Ujani is the last of the dams on the river Bhima that originates in the Western Ghats near Pune, and serves the water needs of Solapur and Pune. With a reservoir area of 336.50 sq km and a catchment area of 14850 sq km, the active capacity of the Ujani dam is 1.44 billion cu metres. It sprawls into a command area of 500 sq km. But still, the region faces an acute water scarcity.
The primary reason is the cultivation of sugarcane, a highly water intensive crop, in Solapur and other districts of the Marathwada region —Beed, Jalna, Aurangadbad and Osmanabad. Sugarcane requires 18 million litres of water per acre for a crop cycle. And on an average, a sugar mill requires 354.37 cu metres of water per day for crushing 1000 metric tonne of sugar (the crushing capacity varies from 5000 MT to 10000 MT per day). “The region witnesses an average rainfall of 700 mm and is suitable only for less water consuming crops such jowar (millet) and groundnuts. But then some of the sugar mills are controlled by politicians,” said Himanshu Thakker, a water rights activist. There are 16 sugar mills in Pune and 18 in Solapur out of the total 160 mills in Maharashtra.In Solapur, water from Ujani dam, villagers claimed, was being given to sugar mills including those controlled by leaders from the ruling NCP and the Congress. One of the sugar factories admittedly taking water was Vithalrao Sugar Mill owned by Babanrao Shinde, the NCP MLA from Madha, Sharad Pawar’s constituency.Indreshwar Sugar Factory in Barshi taluka of Solapur controlled by state Co-operative Minister and Congress leader Harshavardhan Patil is also accused of illegally lifting water from the Sina river. Patil denied the charges. If it is water guzzling sugar that is the culprit in Solapur, then 311 km away in Aurangabad, the distilleries can be blamed for perpetuating the drought.
In Aurangabad, water is sourced from Jayakwadi Dam at Paithan, which has a reservoir area of 350 sq km and a capacity of 2.909 billion cu metre. Its catchment area covers Aurangabad, Jalna, Beed, Ahmed Nagar and Parbhani, close to 1.83 lakh hectares.
According to BJP’s Vinod Tawde, Millenium Beer India Ltd in Aurangabad is supplied with water to the tune of 20140 Million Litres per Day (MLD).
“The supply has doubled this year compared to last year. The supply had been increased after it became evident and accepted by the government that the state was facing one of the severest droughts in several decades,” he said. Another distillery in Aurangabad, Foster’s India Limited, got 8887 MLD in January 2012 and by November 2012, after a very poor monsoon, water supply to the distillery was hiked to 10007 MLD.
Similarly, Aurangabad Breweries got its water supply increased by over 600 MLD in November 2012. In January 2012, this distillery received 14003 MLD and now its consumption is 14621 MLD. While Indo-European Beverages at Aurangabad used to get 2521 MLD in January 2012, its water supply was increased to 4701 MLD, an increase of 2000 MLD. “How can there be water for distilleries and at the same time not available for people for drinking purposes?” asked Tawde.
“There appears to be an inherent flaw in the parameters that go into calculation of water needs in a rural region. In the cities, the per capita consumption has been decided at 140 litres per day. In the rural region, it is 40 litres per day. It’s a man-made drought and not a natural calamity as it is being showcased,” said Suniti S R of National Alliance for People’s Movement, adding that water woes in the rural areas was affecting the survival of livestock.
Activists also questioned the logic behind diverting water to areas which were not known to be drought-prone. Four of Maharashtra’s dams are on the Krishna and Bhima rivers. “Every year, 4 billion cubic metres of water from the Krishna and Bhima flows into the Konkan region that receives about 3000 mm of rainfall. If the diversion to the Konkan region did not take place, the water that eventually flows into the sea would be enough to provide 100 litres of water for seven crore people throughout the year,” said Thakker.
