The Gods Must be Crazy...
Santosh Upre, Managing Director of Ganraj Pipes, is struggling with a new problem - safeguarding his goods from rats. Situated in Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC), which provides infrastructure like land and water to businesses in Beed district, the drought-declared district in Maharashtra's Marathwada region, Upre manufactures pipes for drip irrigation. Until last year, he would have one month of advance booking. But today, he is struggling with three months of piled-up inventory. "There has been deficit monsoon the past three years and so there is no demand from farmers," says Upre. From Rs 2 crore two years ago, Ganraj Pipes' revenues fell to Rs 50-60 lakh last year. The company is currently running one shift for its 15 permanent employees, but sales have been nil so far this year. Says Upre, "If it doesn't rain this year, I will have to shut shop."
The low rural demand has put the agrarian economy of the Marathwada region - which houses 18 per cent of the state's population and accounts for 15 per cent of its GDP - in turmoil, especially as there is no alternative source of income for a majority of the populace. "Unlike western Maharashtra and Vidharba, Marathwada has the lowest industry to agriculture ratio," says Mukund Kulkarni, member of Marathwada Development Board. "For instance, in Western Maharashtra if you have 100 industries for every 100 agricultural units, in Marathwada the ratio would be 32 to 100." Adds Satyanarayan Lahoti, former vice president of the Maharashtra Chamber of Commerce, Industry & Agriculture (MACCIA): "The entire district (Beed) is suffering because of the bad cropping pattern by farmers, as 90 per cent of them are involved in the cultivation of cotton."
The entire MIDC in Beed bears a deserted look. More than 50 to 60 per cent of the industries have been shut and in fact, a majority of the closed industrial units have been seized by banks for non-repayment of loans. Cheaper goods from Gujarat are also hitting the local manufacturers, but they feel if industry has to come back on its feet, the government will have to take care of farmers in the region. "The farmer doesn't require anything free. He is ready to pay, but water and good price for his goods have to be made available. This in turn will also help industries," says Upre.
The only business that is flourishing in Beed is of water - both tankers and tanks. In the past one month, the price of water tankers has doubled to Rs 1,500 per tanker. But people are still buying as there is no ground water in the region. So much so that other industries are getting into water to save themselves. Vijay Industries, which is in the business of selling building materials, is now selling water tanks. "Our business primarily requires water and the drought has seen construction activity down by 95 per cent," says Shyam Lahoti, Director of Vijay Industries. "In a day, we are selling 10 water tanks, which helps keep the wheel moving."
Farmers, too, are improvising. Some farmers who have land along the Godavari river have got into vegetable farming and cultivating crops that require less water. The problem: everyone is doing it. But still there's no respite. With no buyers in the market, crops like tomato, onion and even pomegranate are being sold at throwaway prices - pomegranate at Rs 15-20 per kg, tomato at Rs 2 and onion at Rs 3 per kg. Says Lahoti: "After waiting the entire day, they sell the goods at throwaway prices because they can't even afford transportation to take their goods back home."
Government on the Job
The government machinery is working in full force. The collector of Beed, Naval Kishore Ram, visits four to five villages every day. "Our priority is to see that every person in the village gets water to drink and food to eat," says Ram. "Today 750 tankers are providing water to 1,403 villages, which is expected to go up to 950 in the next one month." Every truck is fitted with GPS for the collector and his office to ensure the water reaches the right destination. The government is also providing food to everyone - 2 kg of rice and 3 kg of wheat per person every month at Rs 2 per kg. It has also set up 262 animal camps in which 2.64 lakh animals have been adopted and their need for water and food taken care of.
As a long-term solution, the government wants to make 513 villages in Beed water sufficient in the next two years. This it aims to do by making rainwater harvesting compulsory and by creating water bodies to store water. Of course, this is purely on the hope that the monsoon will be good this year. The government has been working to take farmers out of the debt trap. "The need of the hour is the change in crop pattern. By May, our aim is to see that farmers adapt to intercropping," says Ram. He feels the real problem is that 50 per cent of the farmers cultivate cotton and 22 per cent produce soyabean. Sugarcane cultivation is hardly 2 to 4 per cent of the total cultivable land of 8.30 lakh hectare. According to Ram, cotton requires investment of Rs 22,000 for each acre. That one acre produces 10 quintals of cotton, which gives a farmer Rs 45,000, a gain of Rs 23,000. If the cotton crop fails, the farmer falls into a debt trap.
"There is a lack of awareness among people. Parbhani (140 km from Beed), for instance, can be the granary for entire Maharashtra. But of the 5.25 lakh hectare fertile land, 80 per cent is used to produce cotton and soyabean," says Ram Bhogale, Chairman of AITG, who also owns Nirlep Appliances. "The problem is, we have forgotten basic farming. The soil has lost its ability to retain water. The moisture in the soil is at an all-time low and for it to regain its value, we just need to add compost, bio-fertiliser or cow dung to it. But such simple solutions aren't observed."
He feels the effort of the government is also moving in the wrong direction. "Rather than focusing on simple farming activity, we are focusing on providing subsidies on fertilisers, while the need of the hour is to increase the fertility of the land." Adds Kulkarni: "It's a man-made crisis. Rather than putting efforts to increase the water table, the focus was on building dams. Majority of the dams have never crossed more than 50 per cent of actual capacity."
Meanwhile, everyone is blaming sugarcane cultivation for the reason for water shortfall, but the fact is there is much less production of sugarcane this year. According to industry estimates, the sugar production in the state is down by 21 per cent to 82 lakh tonnes compared to last year. And with no sugarcane next year, the production is expected to further fall to 50 lakh tonne. The drought in Marathwada has brought down the contribution of sugar in the state from 22 per cent to 10 per cent. "People don't have water to drink, then how will they cultivate sugarcane?" says B.B. Thombare, CMD of Natural Sugar & Allied Industries. "It isn't fair to say sugarcane is the reason for the shortage of water. In fact, sugarcane cultivation consumes 25 to 30 per cent less water than wheat and soyabean grown together on the same land."
Industry Takes the Lead
Industries in Marathwada are doing whatever they can to keep themselves going as well as give the region a new lease of life. Thombare's Natural Sugar & Allied Industries is a good example of a company recycling and reusing every bit of water. Even the steam and vapour from its boilers is captured and collected, and the water is put to use. The company, which runs its own industrial distillery and power generation unit in the same campus, also generates excess power that is sold to the government. Situated in the drought prone region of Osmanabad, the company started a dairy four years ago, which produces 2,000 litres of milk every day. Says Thombare: "Drought has been a great teacher for us. It has helped us grow as well as de-risk our business. In 2011-2012 we started the dairy business to improve the financial condition of farmers below the poverty line." Today, the company collects milk from 216 villages in the region. At the same time, it has also adopted 18 villages within a 15-20 km radius of its factory. Despite the drought in Osmanabad, the 18 adopted villages have sufficient water to drink and were even able to grow the kharif crop last year. "This is the result of efforts of the past three years that has seen widening and deepening of streams, conserving of water, water harvesting and making of soak pits to increase the water table in these villages such that they are still able to get ground water through bore wells when the entire region is dry," says Thombare.
The Bajaj Auto plant in Waluj is another fine example of determination to save water and also get others to follow the same. Situated on 600 acres of land, the company produces 5,000 vehicles in a day. Five years ago, it bought 7,200 cubic metre of water a day. Today, the company buys less than 2,000 cubic metre of water a day. The plan is to reduce it to less than 900 cubic metre of water this year. It may be buying less water, but the company's usage may not have come down drastically. What has helped is that the company recycles its sewage and industrial water, and after chemical treatment, filtration and reverse osmosis (RO), it puts the same water back into operations.
Besides, Bajaj Auto has taken rain water harvesting very seriously. Today the company stores nearly 5.5 million litres water in its campus in four different reservoirs. The water bought from the civic authority is mainly for drinking purpose of its employees. And the rest is used to bridge the deficit after recycling.
The company's vendor association, which has 150 companies, also follows the same principle. In the past two years, the top eight vendors -- including companies related to painting, powder coating and ferro alloys -- keep track of their water usage on a monthly basis. These eight consume 55 per cent of the total water consumed by the 150 companies. In the past two years, these eight companies have brought down their water usage from nearly 1,200 cubic metres a day to 850 cubic metre. "Even the second tier vendors are following the same to save water," says Umesh Dashrathi, Managing Director of Rucha Engineers, a Rs 500-crore auto ancillary company that supplies three wheeler body and fuel tanks to Bajaj Auto. "Apart from recycle and reuse, we are also taking efforts to increase the ground water levels by rain water harvesting, preparing soak pits, planting trees, and deepening and widening water bodies across Aurangabad."
Says Bhogale, "For the past five years, industry has been taking full care to preserve water. Over five to seven years, we have been saving 60 to 65 per cent of water." Nirlep Appliances itself has reduced 70-75 per cent water usage in its factory. "Most of us in Aurangabad have been prepared for the shortage of water. We couldn't fight popular demand of cutting water to the industry."
Already there has been a 10 per cent water cut for industry and 20 per cent for beer makers. "It has become a fashion to criticise before knowing the facts," says Kulkarni of the Marathwada Development Board. "Why blame beer manufacturers? They consume 6.5 per cent of the total water consumed by the industry, and account for 15 per cent of the money collected by the tax department." Adds Bhogale: "They even pay more for water than others. Beer companies pay Rs 53 to 54 for every 1,000 litres of water, compared to Rs 18 paid by other companies." Beer manufacturers, too, have brought down their water consumption from 17 litres to 4 litres of water for producing one litre of beer over the past seven years. Till the economics are in their favour, beer manufacturers are not complaining.
The bottom line for everyone in the region: do all you can, and more. And then, pray for rain.
