Maharashtra drought: Farmer's widow says education can wait as her children need to survive drought first

Tuesday was a happy day for Karjat resident Sangeeta Dongre (35). She got a chance to earn Rs 100 for harvesting Bajra crop. It may not seem much but it was the widow's first earning in over a week. "I will be able to feed my children and mother-in-law today," she says.

Dongre lost her husband four years ago and is now the sole earner in the family. The mother of four owns four acres of land but that's of no use in this drought. "My husband's health was fragile. He fell sick often and had to be hospitalised. We spent almost Rs 3lakh on medical expenses. The loan kept mounting but his health did not improve. Every other day, the money lenders would come knocking at our door," she says.

"He was very frustrated. He didn't know how we would repay the loan. Finally one early morning, he consumed the chemical that we had bought to spray on our cotton crop. He returned home and started vomiting. We asked him what happened but he couldn't reply. We took him to the district civic hospital in Jalna, where doctors told us that he had consumed poison. He died the next day," she adds.

Dongre has studied till Class III. She can sign her name but cannot read or write. "My husband's death put our family in a tight spot. And the last three years of drought ruined our crops and snatched away all work," laments Dongre, who has two daughters and two sons. The family owes Rs 2 lakh to money lenders. "I spent over Rs 30,000 to sow cotton, bajra and soy bean in our farm. The two months of dry-spell ruined our crops completely.

Now it is raining but what's the use," she rues.

Her children's education is the last thing on her mind. "If they survive, then only they can study. We have to skip meals. I can manage but I am worried about them. Starvation will affect their health. Sometimes they cry out of hunger but what to do? Whenever I get some, I buy food items. But even that is hard to come by due to the drought. No one wants to give us work anymore," says Dongre.

Let alone food, even drinking water has become a luxury for the family. "Earlier, a water tanker used to come to the village but it stopped coming due to some reason. Now we depend on the hand-pump. We have to stand in a queue for over two hours for just a bucket of water muddy water. Its so dirty that it is difficult to drink. But we have to quench our thirst somehow. We boil this water and drink it," she says, adding that kids in the area have now started falling sick.

Dongre tells the tale during a lunch break she has taken from cutting the bajra crop. She is eating a bajra roti with some green vegetable. "We do not have money to buy any vegetable. We just uproot any plant that is not too bitter to eat," she says.