Rahul M.

Sahith M.

large_borewells-2_feature.jpg

medium_borewells-2_feature.jpg

small_borewells-2_feature.jpg

thumbnail_borewells-2_feature.jpg

borewells-2_feature.jpg

The farmers of Nagarur in Anantapur district long for their past, a time of abundant groundwater in their village. They sometimes talk about the period before 2007 in the present tense, perhaps not able to let go of those days of relative prosperity.
 
 By around 2007, though the rains had become scarce, the lakes near Nagarur overflowed one last time. &quot;During the time of N.T. Rama Rao [as chief minister of Andhra Pradesh], the rains were regular. When Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy came [to power in May 2004], water from the lakes overflowed for a week [because of heavy rainfall]. And that was the end,&quot; says V. Ramakrishna Naidu, 42, a farmer.

borewells-16.jpg

Although years of low rain were usually followed by a year of good rainfall, which helped fill the wells and recharge groundwater, this slowly changed. Before 2011, in some years the annual rainfall in Nagarur (recorded by the Ground Water &amp; Water Audit Department, Anantapur) was over 700-800 mm. But after June 2011, the highest recorded rainfall in the village has been 607 mm (June 2015-May 2016) and between just 400 to 530 mm in other years.However, the slow drying out of the waters of the 750-odd villages of Anantapur district had begun even earlier, by the 1990s. In that decade, farmers in Nagarur, a village with a population of around 2300, had started cultivating cash crops like groundnut and oranges, instead of their traditional crops like millets and lemons. “That was the trend then, people were cultivating these crops because they were more profitable,” says Sunil Babu, a farmer.

Untitled-1_uxCYmKY.jpg

The shift to water-intensive cash-crops, along with decreasing rainfall, meant drilling more borewells and drawing on ever-deeper sources of groundwater. &quot;Forty years ago, there were no holes [borewells]. There were only wells dug [manually by us]. We had to dig just 10 feet into the ground and there would be water,&quot; remembers Sunil Babu’s father K. Sreenivasulu, a farmer in his 70s.But with a steep decline in the water table – the lowest since the district’s Groundwater &amp; Water Audit Department started keeping records in 1972 – and with less recharge every year, borewells now go to a depth of 600-700 feet. And some farmers in Nagarur say they have drilled to over 1,000 feet and still found no water.In turn, the rapid increase in borewell irrigation has further depleted groundwater levels as well as dried up open wells in the district, according to a 2009 study by the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation “… Only 12 out of 63 mandals in Anantapur district are in the ‘safe’ category with regard to groundwater utilization,” the report states.

Untitled-3_r1MW4Jq.jpg

Sreenivasulu has dug eight borewells on his nine acres of land, spending at least Rs. 1 lakh on each. He and his three sons have taken loans of around Rs. 5 lakhs from private moneylenders. Only one of their borewells is functional now. It is about two kilometres from their farm and the family spent an additional Rs. 2 lakhs on drip-pipes to transport the water to their field. &quot;It’s our desire to save the crops that are about to reach our mouths, from dying,&quot; says Sreenivasulu.
 
 With many farmers like Sreenivasulu desperately trying their luck by digging multiple wells, by 2013 there were around 2 lakh borewells in the district – a number estimated by Dr. Y. V. Malla Reddy in his book
 
 Ananta Prasthanam
 
 ; Reddy works as a director of the Accion Fraterna Ecology Centre in Anantapur. “But we know that of these, around 80,000 borewells have dried up in the summer of 2013,” he writes.
 
 The total number of borewells has gone up to around 2.5 lakhs in 2017,  Reddy told this reporter, and, he said, “The [groundwater] officials recently told me that only 20 per cent borewells are functioning and 80 per cent aren’t working.”

borewells-1.jpg.jpg

That 80 per cent includes two wells on Ramakrishna Naidu’s land – of the three he sank after the year 2000 on his 5.5 acre field, only one is now functional.  &quot;I started taking loans from around 2010-11. Before that there were trees and a lot of water. There were no debts,&quot; says Naidu. He now has a debt of around Rs. 2.70 lakhs from private moneylenders and is able to only pay the 2 per cent interest every month with his income from agriculture. &quot;I can&#39;t fall asleep at night. I keep thinking about the moneylenders. Who might come to ask me for the money tomorrow? Who might shame me in the village?&quot;Despite the loans, the multiple borewells, and the constant worry about water and debt, if a farmer still manages to get a good crop, that too has often not guaranteed a profit in Anantapur because of fluctuating agrarian markets. Using water from his borewell, in April this year Naidu had a good yield of a cucumber used in making sambar . He hoped to make a modest profit. &quot;Ten days before I cut my crop, the rate fell from 14-15 rupees per kilo to 1 rupee a kilo,” he says. “I couldn&#39;t even make the money I spent on buying the seeds. I fed the crop to goats.&quot;

Untitled-2_2BEub1E.jpg

&quot;Tomatoes had no rate too.&quot; says G. Sreeramulu, who incurred losses despite a successful borewell-watered tomato crop in December 2016. Sreeramulu has six failed borewells on his six acres of land. He discusses his borewells over tea at the Shree Sai Tiffin Hotel,  right outside the village. Around 7:30 a.m., the place is usually buzzing with customers, almost all farmers who are spending less time on their fields with their crops failing, or are on their way to construction sites or MNREGA workplaces for daily wage work. The eatery was started by K. Nagaraju, a potter, in 2003. &quot;Initially we had business of about 200-300 rupees every day. Now it is about 1,000 rupees per day,&quot; he says. The farmers discuss various subjects from national politics to their luck with borewells and their debts. &quot;At one time, the party belonged to the village political heads. Now we party with Gangamma [water],&quot; a customer at the eatery says sarcastically. That is, the farmers would spend money to avoid arrests after faction-fights in their villages, but now most of their money is spent on water.

borewells-10.jpg

And with that water receding every year, farming has become such an undesirable occupation here, many tell us, that no one in Nagarur now wants their daughters to marry into a farm household. &quot;I wanted to marry a girl from our village,&quot; says Naidu. &quot;Her parents said they would agree if I got a job in a private company in Hyderabad or somewhere. They didn&#39;t want their daughter to marry a farmer.&quot; Naidu wanted to be a lawyer. &quot;That would have been a good life. I could have helped bring justice to people,&quot; he says. But he was forced to discontinue his bachelor’s degree and take up farming due to family disputes. He is now 42, unmarried, and carries within him many unfulfilled dreams.

Memories of water

ജലത്തിന്റെ ഓർമ്മകൾ

நீர் பற்றிய நினைவுகள்

ପାଣିର ସ୍ମୃତି

पाण्याच्या आठवणी

ನೀರ ನೆನಪುಗಳು

پانی کی یادیں

पानी की यादें

জল স্মৃতি

Nagarur

At present, we can only accept donations in Indian rupees by Indian citizens. All donations made to the CounterMedia Trust are eligible for exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Here is a copy of our exemption certificate.


India is bigger than New Delhi. And people need to know more about the rest of this vast nation.


Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

Donate FAQs


Let’s get you acquainted

Welcome to PARI

Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

Memories of water

A steady decrease in rainfall, the switch to water-intensive cash crops and ever-increasing borewells have lowered the water table in Nagarur village of Anantapur, leaving farmers struggling to keep their crops alive

Related stories

A rain-scented walk in Sivagangai

Living on ravaged land

Biswas and the bamboos on his bike

Recycling energy, Godda style

Bhadels of Goa

Pookadai: still throbbing with morning life

Koli Kadlas

Malnourishment high among children of migrants: study

Wheels of the rural Indian West

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

Vedla – earrings of the Maher community

Dreaming of water, drowning in debt

Kali: the dancer and his dreams

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's

In Yavatmal, life goes on

Suicides are about the living, not the dead

Death of a carpenter

Hoisa Shigmo!

Women farmers: weaving a life in Anantapur

Defiant in Dhinkia

Spice and all that's nice

Kerala's Green Army

The ‘jugaad’ not-a-mobile

Health as someone else's wealth

Calibrating in a Kudumbashree assembly unit