Where Water kills

​Under-10 girls are dying in the trek to fetch water, couples ending up as indentured labour on sugarcane plantations. Is Marathwada really one of the five regions in industrially advanced Maharashtra? Who will rescue it from the Dark Ages? Prateek Goyal reports from a parched, neglected hell.

- Prateek Goyal

In the scorching 42 degrees Celsius heat, 10-year-old Amrita Muzmule walks back home with as big a step her tiny feet will allow without letting even a drop of water spill out of the pot poised on her head. She makes this 4-km trek to a well at least 10 times a day, along with other members of her family. Amrita is just one of the many children pushed into becoming ‘water fetchers’ for their families, trekking many kilometres a day multiple times in search for water. Not all of these ‘water fetchers’ are lucky enough to make it back home as death tends to catch up due to heat, dehydration or even falling into wells.

Welcome to Beed, the land of sugarcane cutters and home to some of the poorest labourers in Marathwada. Here, scarcity of water has led not only to deaths and migration but also illegal detention, innumerable marriage cancellations and dangers of human trafficking. Beed recorded 299 suicides in the year 2015, the highest in Marathwada.

Amrita’s day starts at six in the morning when she, along with her two younger sisters aged 7 and 8, accompany their mother to the well 2 km away. “We wait there till our turn comes, which can be within an hour or may take even four to five hours. We make four-five rounds in the morning, and repeat the same in the evening after 4 pm,” says Amrita.