Aurangabad: Five of the seven farmers , who entered the sewer chamber at Brijwadi Shivar village, have migrated with their families to Aurangabad in search of a job after grappling with scarcity back home.These farmers take land from the owner on rent and cultivate it under the “batai” system. A part of the crop or money is paid to the owner as rent.Ramkisan Mane (47) came to Chikalthana from Dagadwadi in Rajur taluka of Jalna district two years back. He lives in the village with his eight-member family, including wife, son, two daughters and their families.Both Mane and his son-in-law Rameshwar Dambe had entered the chamber after a fellow farmer, Janardan Sable, who had gone in, failed to respond to their calls. Mane is on ventilator support in hospital and the rescue teams are still looking for Dambe.“We had to get our daughters married and we didn’t have any money for that back home. So, we decided to come here and look for work. The earning here is barely meeting out basic needs. Now, we are uncertain if two men from our family will survive this tragedy,” his wife said.Sable, himself, had moved from Vardhadi in Aurangabad taluka to Chikalthana 18 years back. He is survived by wife and three minor children.“He was the sole bread winner of the family. They have been living on the income from the share farming. They don’t have a land of their own,” Gautam Sable, Janardhan’s nephew said.Another farmer who had entered the chamber, Prakash Waghmare, was a native of Pachod in Chittegaon taluka of Aurangabad district. He is undergoing treatment at a local hospital.His son, Sachin, said if they don’t pump water from the drainage for farming they would have no income source.“I have studied only till standard X and do not have any other job. I used to help my father in the farm to earn our livelihood. The groundwater level in the village has dipped to 100 feet. It is just not possible to draw groundwater from there,” Sachin said.Water scarcity has gripped the Marathwada region this year again with water levels in Jayakwadi dam nearing dead storage. Last year, at this time, Jayakwadi dam was showing more than 60% storage. Six other major dams from the region have already hit dead storage in the region as rains were well below normal last monsoon.Perenniel drought in the region has forced families to migrate to larger cities and towns in search of livelihood.Senior environmentalist HM Desarda said that with hardly any livelihood options back home, farmers from the region are forced to move and engage in hazardous jobs despite knowing the risk.He alleged that poor implementation of the employment guarantee scheme had only added to the distress. “While 20 lakh people need employment in Marathwada, the MNREGA scheme offers only 90,000 jobs,” Desarda said.Farmer activists said that despite declaring drought in October last year, the government did not take sufficient measures to save the standing crop from ruin.Kailash Tawar of Shetkari Sanghatna said that the tankers supplied to the area are not meeting the drinking water requirement, so the needs for agriculture are far beyond reach.The AMC recently constructed the drainage line that runs from Brijwadi Shivar village on the outskirts of the city. The sewage chamber is along the nullah of the Sukhana river. Hit by acute water scarcity, the farmers had fixed electric motors inside the chambers of the drainage line to pump water for the vegetables they grown.

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