A Good Drought Is Great For Business - For Politicians Supplying Tankers

Marathwada: To combat drought, water tankers should be a last resort, says a government manual.

But across the eight districts of Maharashtra's drought-hit Marathwada region, tankers are the instant solution preferred by
officials.

This year, the state government has so far deployed 2,064 private tankers across Marathwada. The maximum were sent to Beed district followed by Aurangabad.  

Officials say they have no choice: the villages to which they send tankers have no other alternative water sources.

But as we found in water-starved Solapur district, reviving local water sources - the first corrective measure in the government's manual - led to a drastic reduction in tanker use.

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Tukaram Mundhe, the Collector of Solapur, told us that in 2012,  more than 600 tankers were used for emergency supplies. Last year, just 17 were needed - in a year when Solapur received the least rain in the past 25 years.

If it's possible to develop and cultivate local solutions to make an area self-sufficient - as Solarpur has demonstrated - why  are  tankers, which ensure the opposite, such a common go-to?

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In almost every district, annual contracts for the supply of tankers are landed by local political strongmen. In theory, contracts are handed out through tenders to ensure the best possible pricing,  but often the same politician wins the tender year after year, undermining the credibility of the procedure.

In Solapur, the tanker business has for at least five years been in the firm clutches Babarao Shinde, a state legislator from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which is headed by Sharad Pawar.

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In Osmanabad district, the tanker contract for one of the tehsils, Umerga, has gone for the past ten years to the family of a local Congress leader, Vijaykumar Sonawane. He says he operates 50 tankers in the tehsil.

Marathwada's "tanker netas" refute allegations of profiteering, claiming their investment is so steep that it rules out easy returns. Mr Sonawane said that hiring a tanker costs Rs 40,000, and the cost of a tanker-load of water is Rs 12,000.

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But a rough calculation of tanker economics suggests that profits are generous. Approximate revenues from Marathwada's 2,000-odd tankers used this year add up to  around Rs 400 crores. A margin of about 25% (based on conversations with officials and tanker operators) suggests a cool profit of100 crores.

That could explain why "tanker netas" are so committed to their use. Mr Shinde claimed that people in Solapur resent the ebbing supply of  tankers, even as local water solutions like recharging of tube wells and ponds have been implemented. "Where will they get water from?" he asked.

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The diminishing use of tankers in Solapur is an exception. As drought deepens in the area chillingly dubbed the country's "farmer suicide capital", it's boom time for "tanker-netas", who, by their own admission, are happy to share the spoils.

As Mr Sonawane of the Congress told us, "There are many other people having these (tanker) tenders - from BJP, Shiv Sena, NCP. In our district we are six contractors, they all are from different parties."