Farmers are not the only victims of the drought in Jehanabad, Bihar, with daily wage earners such as ropanis — women engaged to sow paddy saplings — also struggling to survive. With many farmers reluctant to sow their crops, some ropanis have only managed to get work for two days in the entire paddy-sowing season.

While ropanis usually earned about 150 kg rice as wages for their work every paddy plantation season, this year none have earned more than 20 kg. “Farmers will have grain stock till November-December, but we will soon start starving to death,” they say. Rukmini Devi, who considers herself lucky to get her second day’s work at Mehi fields of Sikaria village near Jehanabad, says: “I have already taken over Rs 7,000 loan on 10 per cent interest. My wages of 4 kg rice for the day cannot feed my family for more than five days”.

Sangita Devi, a ropani from Musepur village, said that Mehi and Dagra paddy fields gave her 120 kg of rice as wages last season, but she has earned only 8 kg rice this time. Her husband is now thinking of going to Punjab or Haryana to work. Sangita says she has not tasted pulses for two months because of soaring prices. “Now even rice is going out of our reach,” she says, close to tears.

It is late August and the paddy plantation season is virtually over, but many fields are still barren. Only a few farmers have ventured to water fields with pumping sets, with groundwater level receding fast in the absence of rains.

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