The Hindu Business Line : Pre-monsoon showers offer hope to cattle camp refugees

ACROSS Maharashtra, drinking water continues to be scarce and turnout at Employment Guarantee Scheme worksites has once again surged; but people who had taken refuge in cattle camps with their precious property on the hooves see some hope, thanks to the pre-monsoon showers. They have begun to take their cattle out during the day to prepare their fields in the expectation that it would be a normal year ahead and rains would be received in time.

By the latest count collated on Thursday morning, as many as 19,000 heads of cattle have been brought out to till the fields, trimming the total of the animals still in the 679 camps to 7.29 lakh. This, official estimates indicate, is the start of a reversal of a process which saw people scurrying to cattle camps and living with them waiting for rains. But those who wanted to close down the camps have been asked to desist because the cattle still need support.

It was only last week that the Government decided to relax the condition that cattle should remain in camps. The condition was imposed to ensure that they do not merely wander around without care in the now dry lands where water and fodder is virtually not available. At the camps, mostly run by public trusts where the Government paid Rs 20 per head of cattle, they got their feed and water but the organisers had to struggle to keep it going.

Cattle camps have been a major component of drought management this year and stronger the trusts which got into the act, the better their running. For instance, the weaker ones found that the desire to help did not match the capacity to run them because funds were a critical input. Those who sold sugarcane as fodder instead of sending it to cooperative factories wanted cash payments. And official support comes with a lag in time. Yes, many of them even blundered on.

When asked, Mr Krishna Vatsa, Secretary, Revenue Department, who superintends the drought relief management, said, "The decline in cattle population in camps is not precipitous but there has been some relief following the pre-monsoon showers all over."

But pre-monsoon rains have not, however, translated into drinking water or a cover of grass on the land. "We can only say it is somewhat easier now and we will have to continue with the services to the drought affected."

These services include the transport of drinking water to the people, now in 4,895 tankers as against 4,698 tankers in the previous week. These tanker deployments are due for a review this weekend, but one reality is that most of them find it extremely difficult to locate viable water sources. Even irrigation reservoirs dried up long ago and so have the wells. Bore wells too are yielding much less. New ones, which need to reach deeper, are being set up.

Even the attendance on the EGS worksites, Mr Vatsa said, has gone up by 29,000 within one week to 10.75 lakh because the people continue to reel under the impact of drought, measurable here in loss of their buying power. At the farms, it is virtually a case of dependence on casual work and the norm is "no work, no wage." And in many cases, small farmers who have taken on causal labour, also turned up at the worksites. In the ruralscape, drought is a big social leveller.

More Stories on : Animals & Livestock | Climate & Weather | Maharashtra

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