In a Marathwada village, farmers still await damage assessment

Ramkrishna Rajendra Gavhane, 31, stands on the rubble of his partially collapsed house in Borgaon on the banks of Manjra river in Beed. Nearly two weeks after floods led to the collapse of a section of his house, he is worried for the well-being of his family – a six-year-old daughter, four-month-old nephew, his sister and ailing mother who finds it difficult to move due to a hip injury. The other walls of his house have started coming off the pillars, tilting outward.

Mr. Gavhane hasn’t yet received any government aid. The government says it has distributed ₹10,000 each to those whose houses had collapsed due to the floods, a first in Marathwada in several decades. Over one crore acres of farmland has been affected in the eight districts here, leading to losses for 54 lakh farmers. Over 45,000 people had to be evacuated to safety. Marathwada is otherwise known to be a drought-prone region with agrarian distress due to the lack of water.

The Manjra river, by which Borgaon is situated, is one of the tributaries of the Godavari river. Floods have destroyed houses and farmlands in the village.

“They should come and visit us to see the damage. How will they know by standing on the road or by sitting in their offices?” said Mr. Gavhane, agitated that the revenue officials had not visited the village to conduct proper panchnamas (damage assessment report). He owns 12 acres of land. Of that, seven acres is still under water. “The entire soyabean crop on that land is gone. I am left with nothing. The day revenue officials came to conduct a panchnama, I was not in the village,” he says.

At least 10 others who were present in the village claim that the officials left without conducting spot panchnamas. “There was a tiff between the villagers and the revenue officials. Some said that the government will consider only 20 gunthas (0.5 acres) of land for damage repayment. How will we tide over these losses? All our land is still under water. The soil is eroded. There is no top layer. To remove the rotten crop and to replenish this mud with silt will take at least ₹1 lakh per acre,” said Dattatray Bhagwat Shinde, a soyabean farmer with four acres of land.

“My well is full of mud now. The motor is stuck in it. I have lost pumps, fodder, pipelines, drip irrigation pipes. I have a ₹10-lakh loan on me. What do I do?” said Udaysingh Navnath Shinde, another Borgaon farmer.

Responding to the villagers’ allegations, Beed District Collector Vivek Johnson said clear instructions have been issued to conduct the panchnamas as per the prescribed guidelines. “Most of the panchnamas in the village have already been done. In some of the washed-away areas, the water is still there, due to which the damage assessment could not be completed. They will be within two days,” he said.