In parched Marathwada, all water flows to two Deshmukhs

Dusty Dastapur has been on a three-day wait. “We were told we will have water on Saturday, eight days after the last tanker filled the local well,” rues Ambabai Nijalingappa. 

Well water is pumped into a large overhead tank, which is connected to small plastic tanks on platforms installed in two locations across the state highway (connecting Latur and Osmanabad), which runs through Dastapur. 

The branches of a young neem tree offer little respite from the 42 degrees Celsius heat, and the octogenarian's cataract eyes water. “If I sat at the doors of the Pandharpur shrine as long, God would call me to heaven.”

Of the more than 800 homes in the village, almost all have only elderly and children. “There is no work, water or food. Most adults work in places like Pune and Aurangabad,” says Shevantabai Dakne, 60, herself a domestic help with a doctor's family in Latur city. 

“Both my sons and daughters-in-law run a food cart in Viman Nagar, Pune. I came back because my mother-in-law's sick and there's no one to care for my grandson,” she sighs and adds, “Only if we had water, all our problems would be over.”

The village is in the same tehsil of Loharia as the 91 MCM Lower Terna dam at Makni village in Osmanabad district. 

The water body, constructed in 1970, was supposed to address the kind of drinking water needs like Dastapur's. Though, at dead storage, it has 5 MCM (million cubic metres) of water, all canals leading out of the dam are bone-dry, just like two jack-wells meant to provide water to Nilanga and Osmanabad towns.

But there is one that continues to suck up the receding waters from the reservoir for the Lokmangal sugar factory owned by BJP MLA Subhash Deshmukh.

When dna visited the site on Monday afternoon, workers were using an earth mover to deepen a trench so that more water could flow into the jack-well. 

Questions like who granted permission to this sugar mill or why or how did a dam's waters become a private resource elicit only silence from Osmanabad collector Prashant Narnaware. 

He denied any political pressure, and said: “Cutting off water for sugar factories during the crushing season can create law-and-order problems.” He goes silent again when asked if the neighbouring collectorate of Solapur can do it, why can't Osmanabad.

Deshmukh was evasive, but his son Rohan, a director on the factory board admitted to both – the factory and the jack-well. “We only lifted water during crushing season. Now we don't need water, so we aren't,” he told dna. “We only do this to help poor sugar cane farmers.”

Just below the dam, the shop which sell provisions in Makni village, is shut. “I am tired of waiting for customers. People don't have money and no one comes to buy even a matchbox. How will they? Repeated crop failures due to drought has left them with no money,” explains owner Arvind Patil who wants sell his entire inventory to another shopkeeper. 

“Everyone says no or quotes such a low price that I decline. They say they're also facing the same problem. With every passing day, I'm worried. Instead of giving it to the rich, why can't they release the dead stock of water to the thirsty poor? It'll provide drinking water to over 2 lakh people for six months.”

Barely two hours away, in Latur tehsil's Pakhar Sangvi village, people form a long line with pots and buckets before a tap, which brings water directly from the Dhanegaon dam, built to supply water to Latur. Their wait is in vain.

So, where is the water? Mallikarjun Patil, a local, points to the imposingly grand White Field, a residence being readied for local legislator Amit Deshmukh, son of late Vilasrao Deshmukh, twice Maharashtra CM. Well-watered, the gardens inside look lush green. 

“Even if we beg and plead for a pitcher to drink when they're watering plants, they don't give us,” complains Shashikant Ghodke, a second-year college student. 

“Not everyone can afford the Rs 150-200 private vendors ask for 10 litres. How can they have water to splurge on a garden and get to pick up water from the Manjara barrage for his sugar factory, when we are thirsty?”

dna called Deshmukh for a reaction. “These are baseless lies spread by political opponents,” he said, insisting the water connection at White Field was legal but unable to explain why villagers weren't getting water.

He denied lifting of water for the crushing season by his sugar factory from Manjara barrage. “We use water from sugar cane itself. And whatever minimal water we've lifted is in accordance with the permissions given when the factories started.”

Water rights experts like Vjay Diwan, who think otherwise, point out how the Dhanegaon dam, which has a live storage capacity of 174 TMC live water, has been hit by the 30-50% deficit in the Manjara river volume over the last five years. 

“Obviously, people expect that resources, at least when depleting dangerously, will be equitably distributed. When there was water, sugar factories and plantations were drawing as much as 1,300 MLD while not giving Latur city even 50 MLD per day!”