Latur, Mar 23 (KNN) Some parts of Maharashtra especially Marathwada has become bone dry and news have been doing rounds in the media about the farmers suffering in the drought hits areas. In the wake of this, KNN talked to the industries based in Latur- one of the worst hit district - and found that most of the units are either closed or running by getting water through tankers from neighbouring areas.

The city is a major sugarcane and edible oils, soyabean, grapes and mango production centre. Latur has majority of small and medium scale industries that are agriculture based and not industry based.

Talking to KNN, Kalpkala Paper Industries said “We are closed.”

Similarly, many other small agro-based industries gave the same answer.

Suraj Barge, Proprietor, Vaibhav Industries, explained in details the situation on the ground in Latur. “Most of the industries here are agro-based industries so they are badly affected due to drought.”

“There are around 72-80 pulse mills here and water requirements in these units is huge,” he said adding that half of them are shut down and half, which are running, are dependent on tankers for water.

Barge pointed that the daal mills are getting 20-30 tankers from the districts where water is available.

Latur also has a large presence of Soyabean extraction plants and they also face same situation like the daal mills.

The entrepreneur noted that recently a year ago around 2-3 new plants were set up at the cost of Rs 20 to 30 crore.

“Now they are closed,” he said explaining that because of non-availability of water there is no raw material too.

Talking about the sugar mills, which are around 8-9 in Latur, Barge said that usually these industries used to run till April or May every year but this time they closed down in December or January beginning itself.

And then there is also no water for farmers to grow sugarcane, the industrialist added.

Vaibhav Industry supplies sugar, jaggery and jaggery powder plants on turn key basis, he said mentioning that they have to get at least one tanker water for the workers every day.

Drought not only has affected the small industries but it has also impacted the big units in the area.

Barge said that one big steel unit in which more than 1500 labours worked also closed due to the drought.

“The labours working there were from UP, Bihar and Maharashtra and all of them have now gone to other parts of the state,” he said.

“The losses incurred by the small industries are in crores, their debts are increasing, bank proposals are stuck and on top of all that there is no revenue,” Barge said.

He said that the many industries are moving to other parts of the state like Pune, West Maharashtra.

About the micro units, he said, “There are completely shut and big units are running on ventilators.”

Avinash, Proprietor, Balaji Pipe, said “The situation here is very bad. We have to buy water at very expensive rates from outside.”

“Each tanker costs around Rs 600. MIDC water supply stopped a month ago post which our production costs have gone up immensely,”Avinash said.

“MIDC says that there is no water in the dam for any supply so they can’t help,” pointed the industrialist.

Latur, about 400 kilometres east of Mumbai, is part of Maharashtra's drought-ravaged Marathwada region, and its half-a-million residents are reeling from years of below-par monsoon rains.

Last year around 1,400 farmers committed suicide in the region over crop failure from a lack of water and an inability to meet loan payments. (KNN Bureau)