Wells
and handpumps have run dry in the 45C heatwave. The drought, which
officials say is worse than the 1972 famine that affected 25 million
people across the state, began early in December. By the end of May,
Hatkarwadi had been deserted with only 10-15 families remaining out
of a population of more than 2,000.
With
80% of districts in neighbouring Karnataka and 72% in Maharashtra hit
by drought and crop failure, the 8 million farmers in these two
states are struggling to survive. More than 6,000 tankers supply
water to villages and hamlets in Maharashtra daily, as conflict brews
between the two states over common water resources.
The
acute water shortage has devastated villagers’ agriculture-based
livelihood. Crops have withered and died, leaving livestock starving
and with little to drink. Major crops, including maize, soya, cotton,
sweet lime, pulses and groundnuts – drivers of the local economy –
have suffered.
A
dried-up well is refilled with water from a water tanker in Thane
district in the western state of Maharashtra. Photograph: Francis
Mascarenhas/Reuters
Around
the world, stronger El Niño weather patterns and the ongoing climate
breakdown are bringing harsher and more frequent droughts – and
already-dry India has been particularly hard hit.
Scientists
predict that as temperatures continue to rise with global heating and
populations grow, the region will experience harsher water shortages
– and will need to find clever solutions to ensure there is enough
water for all.
In
Marathwada, by many estimates the Indian region most affected by
drought, increasingly frequent droughts have led to more than 4,700
farmer suicides in the last five years, including 947 last year. That
crisis has deepened. In the city of Beed, clean drinking water has
run out and households do not have enough water to wash clothes,
clean dishes or flush the toilet. Hospitals are filling up with
people suffering from dehydration – and gastrointestinal disease
from drinking contaminated water.
Residents
who can afford it pay private water tankers the equivalent of £3 for
1,000 litres of water. Many end up in hospital as a result – even
cows refuse to drink the muddy and salty liquid that has been dredged
from the bottom of exhausted dams and lakes in the region.
“Over
the last one-and-half months, there has been a 50% rise in the number
of patients suffering from diarrhoea, gastritis etc,” said Sandeep
Deshmukh, a doctor at the Beed Civil hospital.
He
blamed contamination for the rise in water-borne diseases. “We have
appealed to the people to boil drinking water,” Deshmukh said.
For
many of the district’s population of 2.2 million, of which 240,000
live in Beed itself, their day starts by searching for water from
borewells. Others have to plead with their neighbours for water.
Usha
Jadhav who lives in nearby Shivajinagar, said her family does not use
the toilet any more as it has become an unaffordable luxury, and that
women wait for the darkness of night to defecate in the open. “We
cannot use 5-10 litres of water for flushing as we have to purchase
water,” she said.
By
the end of May, 43% of India was experiencing drought, with failed
monsoon rains seen as the primary reason. The country has seen
widespread drought every year since 2015, with the exception of 2017.
About
20,000 villages in the state of Maharashtra are grappling with a
severe drinking water crisis, with no water left in 35 major dams. In
1,000 smaller dams, water levels are below 8%. The rivers that feed
the dams have been transformed into barren, cracked earth.
Groundwater,
the source of 40% of India’s water needs, is depleting at an
unsustainable rate, Niti Aayog, a governmental thinktank, said in a
2018 report. Twenty-one Indian cities – including Delhi, Bengaluru,
Chennai and Hyderabad – are expected to run out of groundwater by
2020, and 40% of India’s population will have no access to drinking
water by 2030, the report said.
This
year’s south-west monsoon, responsible for 80% of the country’s
rainfall, is projected to be delayed and smaller than normal, meaning
there is no respite in sight for the parched state of Maharashtra.
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