Gadegaon, 14 km away from magnificent Pandharpur Temple, is a small village situated approximately 350 kms South East of Mumbai, India. With a population of around 10,000, majorly belonging to Harijan community, 95 per cent of the habitants earn their livelihood from farming and other related activities and currently, 25 per cent of the population is landless farmers.
The Solapur district has always faced water crisis with annual rainfall of around 650 to 700 mm and due to insufficient rainfall, the farmers eventually had to depend on groundwater such as wells and bore- wells for farming. The increased dependency on groundwater resource is majorly due to below average rainfall, leading to drying up of the surface water reservoirs. Thus, farming and domestic water requirement had to turn their way towards groundwater resource. Now, groundwater resources are also facing ordeal as being the only resource available, it has been utilized over its capacity and water table is at present on the verge of scarcity.
The first quarter of 2016 has experienced completely exhaustion of water in most of the bore – wells and wells, ultimately ceasing the farming activity. No farming has resulted into unemployment for the landless farmers who use to plough on other’s farm.
Well, they are jobless now!!!
These landless farmers are mostly migrants and are completely dependent on the work which is generated in and around the village in the form of farming, domestic help and Government projects. The population of ‘Landless’ farmers is rising as the same situation has been started to evolve in the neighboring villages, adding up to unemployment.
Villagers are self made people and the pride and prestige probably sums up their entire world, one can say it is their identity. Their belief in God, Religion, Caste, Creed and Rituals is impregnable and it’s herculean task to overcome their belief. Marriage or any ceremonies, for a matter of fact are considered to be prestigious issue which has to be carried out in extravagant way. And to maintain their status, they end up in borrowing money locally.
Everything is good when the grass is green!!!
But in unfortunate circumstances such as drought, it mounts the burden of loans, compelling the farmers to end their life and free themselves from shame. Drought acts as one of the major cause of farmers committing suicide as the hope of generating good yields and repaying the loan fades away with the arrival of drought, leaving them in depression.
Gadegoan, has diverse farming products like Sugar Cane, Anar (Pomegranates), Cauliflower, Banana, which are harvested at any point of the year. Among all these crops Pomegranates seems to sustain in water scarcity situation, as it required very less amount of water, if managed well.
For Example: Mr. Janardhan Bhai has 2 Acres of land and he has been planting Pomegranates since 2 years and surprisingly they have given him fairly good returns annually. According to him ‘Pomegranates, is the only crop which requires less water and has a very good value in the market. He sells them in Pandharpur markets. Unfortunately, handful of farmers grow Pomegranates in Gadegoan, and in surrounding villages like Tisangi and Korti, which has a population of 4000 to 5000, both together.
So, currently, Gadegoan, Tisangi and Korti is on the edge of facing severe drought which might hit in the coming years if the rains are not good or if provisions to Harvest the rain is not in place.
I have witness the current situation along with Mr. Samraat Mitra, Mr. Lalit Misra, Mrs Priyanka Sharma and most importantly Mr. Yashwantraoji, social worker from Gadegoan, a Ph. D student from TISS. I would like to sincerely thank Dr Hemant Joshi, Secretary, Save Indian Farmers (SIF), whom I eMeet through a common friend, Mrs. Vipasha Dasgupta Sen. Thanks Vips!!!
SIF, is extensively working in Gadegoan with the help of Mr. Yashwantraoji. SIF have already built ‘Panpoi’, for the Villages.
The SIF strategy also includes supplying 3 months ‘ration’, which covers Rice, Wheat, Pulses, Oil, Salt, Sugar, Tea powder and Spices. SIF strictly believes in ‘NO CASH’ systems, as the most important thing require by the farmers is ‘Food’. This ration is only given to the landless farmers, who are in a bad state. The listing of the farmers was done by Mr. Yashwantji.
In order to meet the requirements, we utilized ‘Whatsapp’ to its real sense and started raising funds to buy the necessities from APMC market, Navi Mumbai, and transported them through two SUVs.
During distribution process, I felt that it should look like an act of sympathy, and they applaud you for your acts. It is thus extremely important to make them realize that this distribution is not a charity and it’s going to come all the way all the time but they have to work towards the community and built on concept like water conservation, swachh bharat abhiyan and various other things, which would make it sustainable.
I can say that after the distribution, I slept peacefully after a long time !!!
SUMMARY
We have the land and we have the Sun, the only unpredictable element is water, which is the life line for entire ecosystems to perform their responsibilities.
It’s hard to believe that “Water” can be at crises, as technically 97% of the earth’s surface is covered by sea water + saline water, but again we all know that we can’t use it directly. Only 3% is freshwater, out of this 3%, 30% is accounted in ground water, 0.3% to surface water and remaining about 69% is stored in the Glaciers and Icecaps. So logically countries or states, far from the Glaciers and Icecaps are depended on the surface water and ground water only. So, the key is to overcome this crisis is to save water. We have to comprehend, learn various sustainable means to conserve water and save water. Looking at the rain patterns, we have just 3 fruitful months to tackle the rain water and save it through various medium for the rest of the 9 months, to make it a sustainable cycle. We have dams, reservoirs, lakes, rivers and ponds which takes care of the surface water that caters instantly to the population, but again it is not adequate for the rapidly growing demands
So, extensive work needs to be done in Recharging the Aquifer Artificially for followings:
1) To meet the demand for the growing population
2) Since its understand, evaporation rate is negligible
3) It works as an opposite force to stop the saline water to enter into the ground
4) It avoids the rainwater runoff , which usually goes to sewer or storm water drain
‘We have the land and we have the Sun, now it’s time to catch the rains and store it like grains’
It’s time to give back, in whatever form, which will secure our kids future!!!
WAY FORWARD
We would be planning a Water conservation and tree plantation program in Gadegoan, Tisangi and Korti. Primarily, we will be concentrating on Roof top rain water harvesting and simple soak pits in the month of May and June.
We are working in close support with www.saveindianfarmers.org and Dr. Hemant Joshi.
All of us are chipping in for the support in our own way. Citizen initiative …… IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE and support from Government or NGO only strengthens it.
Thank You,
Abhijit H Nikale
REV Environmental Ventures
