A few kilometres off Bijawadi village in Maan tehsil, Sanjay Vittal Bhosale has let loose his three buffaloes on the vast drylands. Bhosale is taking the animals around on the barren land, almost burnt yellow, not for grazing but for the sake of exercise to keep them alive. The other option is to send them to the abattoir, an option he prefers not to exercise as of now.

Forty-year-old Bhosale has about 10 acres of land, where he grew bajra last year; no sowing has happened this year. Like many in Maan taluka, which is already a scarcity-prone region, he said this year’s drought is the worst he’s seen, even compared to the severe drought of 1972.

Farmers here say that while there was always some rain in the previous drought years, this year there has been almost none, even during the sowing period. Maan and the nearby Katav tehsil are among the 221 tehsils that have been declared as “pre-drought” areas.

“Around these parts, there is some rain till June which helps the sowing. This year, there has been 14 mm rain since the arrival of monsoons. Not even one hectare has been sown. The borewells have gone down to 500 ft, the groundwater is still scarce. Last year, the productivity was over 1.5 times of the normal harvest. This year none is expected,” says the taluka agriculture officer of the Maan tehsil, Rajendra Mane.

Out of 1.5 lakh hectares, just over 73,000 hectares are arable, he said. The tehsil faced a similar situation in 2003-04. But that time, Mane said, rains had been good in Konkan and other regions. Dams were not short on water, electricity supply was there, and water could be transported to Maan. “Now that hope is also not there. There can be no kharif crop this year,” he said.

... contd.