Maharashtra: 700 drought-hit farmers

living in 'houses' with no walls or roof

Migrants from Nanded district take water from tankers at the Dattaji Sadwi ground in Barwenagar
of Ghatkopar on Monday; (left, top) People hold their identity cards in a queue for food that NGOs
are donating; and a child waits for food at a camp for Marathwada people (dna - Vibhav Birwatkar)
MANSI GODA | Tue, 26 Apr 2016-07:20am , dna

As far as work is concerned, the opportunities are few and far in between.
Some men have become daily wage labourers and do whatever work they
receive at the Ganesh Mandir Naka, while the women do odd jobs
sometimes.
Balaji Ram Chauhan, who looks towards the sky every day in hope to see some
clouds, lives in a house that has no roof or walls, only a number. His 'jhopdi'
no. 60 is, in fact, a small section of ground with two bamboo sticks
demarcating his territory.
And he is not alone. A community of approximately 700 drought-affected
people, mostly farmers, are living literally on a land of sewage and muck at the
Dattaji Sadwi ground in Barwenagar, Ghatkopar (W). The camp was set up by

BJP MP Kirit Somaiya, where 212 families live under the open sky, amid boars
and mosquitos.
As many as 160 families have a placard documenting their identity, whereas
others have smaller IDs, which do not guarantee them ration. Though
Somaiya's workers frequent the camp to contribute in whatever manner
possible, it does not change the bigger picture.
Most of these families have been living at this location for at least a month or
two, unlike the migrant farmers in Thane and Navi Mumbai. "As many as 2030 families have been coming to live here every year for the last two years,
during the summer months. Last year there was little water, but this year,
there is absolutely none. Almost half the people from my village are here right
now," said Chauhan.
Chauhan and his family of three are from Nanded. Almost all other families
also come from that district. According to them, they are facing terrible woes
but anything is preferable to lack of water. A BMC tanker comes to the camp
everyday, and people collect water in empty oil containers. "We do not have a
lot of utensils. We definitely do not have buckets and mugs. A few families that
do bought them by putting together their savings," said Koshabai Shankar
Rathore, whose primary requirement is a toilet.
Shankar Rathore, a resident of jhopdi no. 100, owns an acre of land in
Nanded, where he used to grow hybrid jowar till two years ago. "Without
sufficient water, the harvest is terrible. I was reaching the point of debt, so I
stopped," he said.
"There are 700 people here and more are arriving daily, but we don't have a
single proper washroom. My three-year-old child runs around in this muck
and we have no soap, to wash our bodies, utensils or clothes," said Koshabai.
"This is no condition for human beings to live in," said Abhishek Bharadwaj,
founder of NGO Alternative Realities. "The state requires emergency shelters
to deal with people who are practically refugees of natural disasters such as

drought." Bharadwaj is mobilising resources from Navi Mumbai's housing

societies to aid the farmers living there. Whitfield Cooperative Society of
Hiranandani Meadows in Thane (W) has also raised funds to provide clothes
at Navi Mumbai.
As far as work is concerned, the opportunities are few and far in between.
Some men have become daily wage labourers and do whatever work they
receive at the Ganesh Mandir Naka, while the women do odd jobs sometimes.
The children, however, bear the brunt of this lifestyle, often falling ill with
malaria and other diseases.
"This community needs to be moved to a sanitary shelter. A mobile creche or
Anganwadi is also the need of the hour," said Bharadwaj.
Meanwhile, in the spirit of philanthropy, environmentalist Elsie Gabriel will
soon be providing 300 solar lanterns to the people who do not have a single
source of light. "Women and children are the worst affected. After visiting the
site, we decided to help with the safety aspect in an ecologically friendly way
through the lanterns," she said. NGO Earth 5R also arrived on April 25 to
provide training to the women and children to make paper bags.
Also, Nirja Bhatnagar, regional manager at ActionAid Maharashtra, who has
already conducted an outreach programme with the farmers in Thane and
Navi Mumbai said, "We will provide relief packets to the people at Ghatkopar,
which will include nutritional food, multivitamins and mosquito nets. We also
request Eknath Shinde, guardian minister of the district, to provide aid to
those in Navi Mumbai as well, instead of doing so just in Thane."
Bharadwaj also suggested that a city-wide census of these temporary migrants
be conducted, so that aid reached all, instead of just those living in Thane.

Displaced by drought, migrants flock

to city's outskirts
Many families like Dattatraya Dhangars (left) from Vidarbha region have made their home under a
flyover in Turbhe(Nandu Kurne)

87

87
MANSI GODA | Sun, 24 Apr 2016-07:25am , dna

Dattatraya Dhanghar owns 4.5 acres of land in Washim district, but he has
been living under Turbhe flyover in Navi Mumbai for the past 10 days. The
need for drinking water for sustenance has driven Dhanghar and several
others like him to travel hundreds of kilometres to Navi Mumbai, Thane and
Kalyan, the gateways to Mumbai.

As Maharashtra's water crisis worsens with every passing year, a growing

percentile of the rural populace is being forced to travel to cities like Mumbai
to spend the summer months. Not only is this causing an influx of temporary
residents Mumbai is not prepared to host, but if the situation continues, there
could potentially be an additional burden on the city's water resources.
Expecting to stay till the monsoon, these families are scattered all over Navi
Mumbai, staying under the flyovers in Turbhe and Nerul, and in Kalamboli,
Vashi and Panvel. Kondabai (68) from Yevatmal is anxious to return to her
village. "Who would want to leave their home and community and come live
here on the streets?" she asks.
To make matters worse, these migrants are fast running out of their limited
ration and require even basic necessities like clothing and shelter. "When one
has to travel to a city for water, one can carry limited things. We brought as
much food as we could, but no clothes. Our clothes are torn and dirty now,"
Kondabai says. She adds that there are no sanitation facilities available for
them, leading to open defecation.
Also, no matter where they live in Navi Mumbai, safety is a major concern for
each of these families. "We have wives and daughters with us who are also
sleeping on the streets. It gets pitch dark under the flyover at night and so we
have to leave the place, but doing this every day is taxing. Dangerous people
frequent this area at night,"says Dhanghar.
So Dhanghar's family of four stays under the flyover only during the day, going
to the nearby Shree Datta Guru Temple to obtain water, and sleeps on the
streets outside Vashi station at night. Turbhe flyover provides shelter to
approximately 50 such people, most of whom are from villages in the Vidarbha
region, including Washim, Yavatmal, Akola and Buldhana.
"My father and I have toiled hard to buy the land we have now. But without
water, how do I grow anything on it? I was a prosperous farmer once, but my
debt worries me now," he says.

Dhanghar took an agricultural loan two years ago, which he has been unable to
repay, along with a loan taken for his daughter's wedding that amounts to
Rs1.7 lakh. He and his two young sons, aged 10 and 12, are now willing to
perform any job that requires manual labour.
"I will lose my land if I cannot repay the debt. The monsoon has been
disappointing for three years now. There are three ponds and some wells in
my village, but everything has dried up," he informs. "When farming could not
happen, I turned to finding employment as a construction labourer, but it is
difficult to find work because construction also requires water, which is
scarce," he says.
Droughts are not new to Maharashtra, as it reels from water shortage every
summer. It hits the poor the worst. Says Kondabai: "Even when a tanker
arrived in our village, we were the last to get any water. Borewells were used
continuously by the people of the higher castes during the day, so there was
nothing left. Sometimes we used it in the middle of the night, and got enough
to fill a single utensil."
Two NGOs, Alternative Realities and Action Aid, reached out to these families
on April 19. Alternative Realities founder Abhishek Bharadwaj says: "The Navi
Mumbai Municipal Corporation should provide mobile toilets here, along with
medical aid. A temporary shelter should be put in place, but since we lack
permanent shelters for hundreds of others who should ideally have that
facility, I have little hope."
Bharadwaj now hopes to mobilise aid for these families. "We could start a
collection drive for clothes and ration. We also require volunteers to teach the
children, because schools will not enroll so many children for a short period,"
he says.
But NMMC officials claim to have no knowledge of these migrants. They also
have no contingency plans to create a support system for the migrants. "We
will look into the matter," said Ankush Chauhan, additional commissioner,
NMMC.

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Soon, buy fresh fruits, veggies

from farmers markets in Panvel
B B Nayak | TNN | Jan 31, 2015, 12.00 AM IST

Navi Mumbai: Farmers and residents have reason to cheer after Raigad
zilla parishad decided it will set up markets that would ape the project in
Kalyan within the next few months.

Three months ago, the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC)

decided to open farmers' markets, where produce could be bought without
the additional cost of the middleman. These farmers' markets price their
produce 25% lower than those sold by hawkers. The project was a huge
hit. A similar model is in the works at Kharghar, Kamothe, Taloja, Kalamboli
and New Panvel.
"We had a meeting with farmers recently, during which we discussed this
idea. We told them that it will work to their benefit, as they won't be bullied
by middlemen," said Arvind Mhatre, vice chairman, zilla parishad.

Officials also added that these farmers' market were planned after "rapid
urbanization started to take away cultivable land".

Officials also said that often poor farmers did not know how to price their
produce and middlemen got their product at a pittance and sold it at inflated
costs to make a huge profit. "In the prevailing APMC system, farmers are
being robbed of their share. A farmers' market will give them the advantage
they deserve," said an official.

The plan, officials said, is to eliminate middlemen altogether. "Panvel and

Uran produce 20-25 ton of vegetables everyday. This is a market, which we
aim to tap into," he added.

Kharghar locals want plots

allotted for hawkers market
Indira Rodericks | TNN | Mar 15, 2016, 12.06 AM IST

NAVI MUMBAI: With the hawker menace threatening to spiral out

of control in Kharghar, the local residents are now demanding that
the authorities allot a plot of land for a permanent market place.
This could probably be one of the rare instances where the
residents do not want to have hawkers removed entirely from the
area.
Around 400 residents, most of them housing societies' secretaries, from
various sectors in Kharghar met the elected corporators on Sunday and
submitted letters.
"There is a street market put up every Tuesday in sector 19 and every
Saturday in sector 12. Despite repeated complaints, nothing has been done
about it," said Kiran Patil, president, Yuva Prerna Samajik Sanstha, a local
organization.
The residents are also demanding hawker-free footpaths and have given
the authorities a deadline of March 15 to clear the spaces. "While the

residents are entitled to clear footpaths and roads, we feel even the
vendors are entitled to an allotted space. They also need water, electricity
and a better garbage disposal system," Patil added.
The residents said that it is convenient to have hawkers in and around the
various sectors but they feel that such unplanned vendors rob them of
clean public spaces. "We understand that they have to earn a living.
Kharghar has many empty plots which can be earmarked for markets,"
added a resident Dilip Jadhav.
An official from Cidco said that the planning department was working
towards a solution.

Create green lungs on your terrace!

An aerial view of the terrace garden of Dadar's Our Lady's Home

POOJA PATEL | Fri, 8 Jan 2016-06:40am , Mumbai , dna

Green Souls, an NGO working for sustainable farming, has created a green
patch on the terrace of Dadars Our Lady's Home

Green Souls, an NGO that works for sustainable farming in Mumbai and Navi
Mumbai, has been doing good work. One of their projects includes the
community garden at Dadars Our Lady's Home, an orphanage that houses
130 boys. But what is really interesting is the location of this gardenits been
set up on the buildings terrace!
Not the usual gardening
Around two and a half years ago, Green Souls created this organic terrace
garden with the support and coordination from the orphanage. What stands
out here is the way the gardening has been doneits zero budget gardening.
Trupti Kedari from Green Souls shares, We dont buy soil; we teach the boys
to use the high-nutrient compost produced by managing the kitchen waste.
Apart from using the kitchen waste, even leaves, twigs, coconut shells and
wood logs are collected and turned into compost. The compost is then used as
soil and various types of vegetables and fruits are grown in it. Whats even
more commendable is that Green Souls does not buy pots for the plants; they
reuse buckets, cardboard boxes and other such things to grow the plants.
Green Souls strongly follows the rule of not using red soil, not only because its
a zero budget idea, but also because it believes that for every piece of garden
that they build in the city, a patch of forest land, somewhere, is destroyed.
A green haven

Their garden blooms with fruits and veggies according to the seasons and on
an average, there around 50 varieties of plants in it. Some of the plants that
they grow include tapioca, banana, papaya, potato, basil, cabbage and
cauliflower. Another interesting thing that Green Souls does is growing
multiple plants in one bucket. Kedari explains, In one bucket, we grow three
to four varieties of plants; for example, we have been growing cabbage and
cauliflower in one bucket. Since it is a community garden, the harvest is
offered to the orphanages kitchen, which is then use to cook the food. The
entire process of gardening involves boys of all ages from the orphanage. This
has created a sense of responsibility towards the garden, and has sensitised
the boys towards the environment. Moreover, they have learnt and adapted to
organic food. The overall result is that these boys are extremely excited about
taking care of the garden and they volunteer often with Green Souls.