(Top) Desperate to bring water to the dying soya crop, a farmer transports irrigation pipes in Waifad; a farmer shows his dried up 8.5-acre farm. Telegraph pictures

Waifad (Vidarbha), July 13: Nature threatens to weed out the loan largesse sown by PC.

A week after banks in the suicide belt of Vidarbha began distributing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s personal letter assuring that his government “will always be with the farmers” with the waiver certificate, a deficient and scanty monsoon has cast a cloud on the mood of optimism.

The scenario appears equally alarming for nearly 60 per cent of Maharashtra. Chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh’s cabinet last week declared a drought-like situation in 164 of the 355 tehsils which have received less than 50 per cent of their average rainfall this monsoon.

The figures released by the revenue and forest department showed that of the 31 districts in the state, 16 had received less than 50 per cent of the average rainfall. Eight other districts have received between 50 and 75 per cent, and only five districts had received more than 100 per cent rainfall.

“Delayed rainfall has affected sowing operations, and the situation is alarming,” said cooperation minister Patangrao Kadam.

The weak rainfall has severely hampered plantation during the kharif season with sowing reported from an area of only 39 lakh hectares of the total cultivable area of 125 lakh hectares, officials said.

According to data from Indian Meteorological Department, Nagpur, the six suicide affected districts of Wardha, Washim, Yavatmal, Amravati, Akola, and Buldhana have received deficient or scanty rainfall this monsoon. But P.K. Nandankar, director of the Regional Meteorological Centre, Nagpur, blames the farmers for showing haste in undertaking the first sowing.

“Normally, after June 20, normal monsoon sets in with regular showers. But farmers showed undue hurry in sowing when heavy showers came down. Agriculture officers have obviously not explained to them that they should wait,” said Nandankar, insisting that Vidarbha’s monsoon has been normal with annual variations. He said a low pressure trough had begun forming in the Bay of Bengal which was moving in a north-westerly direction, and could bring the much-needed rain in three to four days.

Waifad, 92km from Nagpur in Wardha district, is one of the three villages that the Prime Minister chose to visit in July 2006 to know the debt crisis first hand. Nearly 50 per cent of small and marginal farmers got the benefit of the loan waiver scheme recently, but their joy is muted. Nearly 90 per cent of the farmers had sown either cotton or soyabean with the first showers of monsoon last month, but scanty rainfall now threatens to kill the crop, forcing them to replant.

Dilip Punewar, 59, had sowed soyabean — a more lucrative crop than cotton — on June 14 investing Rs 15,000 from his savings. Soyabean seeds germinate within six to seven days of sowing, and requires adequate moisture in the soil to grow further. With no sign of normal showers for almost a month now, Punewar is distraught that he would have to re-sow if rain plays truant for some more time.

“Soya seeds dry up because of the lack of moisture. If it doesn’t rain, I will have to wait for the showers and re-sow. For that, I will have to borrow another Rs 15,000,” says Punewar, who switched from cotton cultivation to the less capital intensive and more profitable soyabean three years ago.

He has never defaulted on loans, and hence is automatically out of the loan waiver scheme net. The waiver will benefit only those farmers owning less than five acres who have defaulted between 1997 and March 31, 2007, or those who can repay 75 per cent of the defaulted loan before 2009.

Shyamsunder Thakre, 55, from neighbouring Dhamangoan had taken a loan in 2006 on his three-acre farm and paid it back in 2007. Since he is not a defaulter, he also can’t benefit. “I have also done the first sowing. Each day clouds gather and vanish. If rains play truant through the monsoon, I will be left with just Rs 12,000 for the whole year,” says Thakre, who supports a family of seven, and has applied for a fresh loan with no word on when it would be sanctioned.

“The government has to save us. Otherwise, there will be no tilling till next year. Even money-lenders are not giving us any loans looking at the failing first crop and the crackdown from the government,” says 50-year-old Taibai Madari, who owns 3.5 acres.

A survey of 17km of farmland between Wardha city and Waifad shows that except a few villages, which traditionally receive better rainfall, the soya farms are on the verge of drying up. Farm activist Vijay Jawandia, who had hosted Manmohan Singh in Waifad two years ago, himself faces the prospect of a second sowing on his 10-acre soyabean farm.

Desperate to provide some water to the fields, farmers are seen setting up drip irrigation pipes. “The water levels are just knee deep, and if you use that up for irrigation, you have to wait for eight to 10 days for the level to restore. If you are lucky to get stable water level in your well, you don’t get enough power to pump the water,” says an angry Thakre.

Waifad reels from a gruelling 11-hour loadshedding schedule, between 8.30am and 4pm, and again from 7.30pm to 11pm every day. “Three-phased power is available only after 11pm, and we can’t work in the fields at midnight,” says Thakre.

Farmers who got the benefit of the waiver are not better off either. Suresh Mulye, 40, got a waiver of Rs 14,000 on his four-acre farm. He managed to borrow cotton and soya seeds, fertilisers worth Rs 16,000 and sow when monsoon arrived last month. With that crop likely to dry up, he is worried about how to get more money for the second sowing.

“We heard that banks will now expand the scale of fresh loans. Non-irrigated farms will get loans at the rate of Rs 10,000 per acre instead of Rs 3,000. But the bank manager says he has no such orders yet and would lend by the old rate,” says Mulye.