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Villagers
throng food-for-work program in India's drought zone |
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April 27, 2000 ARABASAN, India, APR 27 (AP) - With necklaces and anklets jangling under their saris, village women joined their men to dig water tanks Wednesday in India's smoldering western expanse, where severe drought is punishing 50 million people - and is likely to worsen. Tens of thousands of desperate villagers are said to be fleeing their parched lands, leaving hordes of cattle to die across a huge swathe of two western states. But many others are staying put, hoping an aid-for-work program started this week by the government will bring them money, food and water. The desert state of Rajasthan and the adjoining Gujarat are the worst affected. The water table has been dropping since November and the region is enduring its third year of drought. But
India is experiencing an unusually hot and early summer this year,
with dry weather in large areas of the states of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa - where a cyclone and floods killed at least 10,000 last fall. The
water scarcity is so sever that it has even killed several camels
- the so-called ships of the desert that can go without a drink for more than two weeks. Three died in the dustbowl of Arabasan, a barren waste about 60 kilometers (36 miles) south of the historical fort city of Jodhpur in Rajasthan, a high point of most tourists' visits to India. Normally the villagers make handicrafts, do artisan work or run shops. Many men travel to Gujarat to produce salt on the sea cost. But three years in a row has produced crippling poverty, killing cows - a source of income and food - and leaving villagers unable to buy fodder to keep their cattle alive. With no rain to produce wild grass, the livestock is dying in the thousands and carcasses lie everywhere. About 100 villagers worked nonstop Wednesday in the scorching sun, beginning a months-long effort to deepen a huge square tank that was the main water source of nine villages until it went dry weeks ago. Last year at this time water was brimming in the 300-by-200-foot tank, with stairs for women to descend with their wooden-handled iron water pots. The villagers hope that when rain comes again, the tank will hold more water, and if they are very lucky, the government might line it with cement, to combat seepage. In the meantime, they are working for the promise of government aid to tide them over the hotter weeks to come. Men in pink turbans and women in yellow and red saris billowing in the hot gusts of wind worked with spades and pickaxes. The men wore earrings and the women ornate necklaces, anklets, toe-rings, and thick white bangles. "I
woke up, milked the buffaloes, cooked for the family, and I was
here at 7 in the morning," said Teejan Devi, 30, her face completely masked by part of her yellow, cotton, wraparound sari. "Now
I will go back and cook again." Teams
of three villagers have been each allotted 144 square feet in
which they have to dig. After an 11-hour work day, if they can deepen it by
one foot, they would each get 60 rupees (dlrs 1.50). |