Marathwada floods: Relief out of reach
Nagubai Chaudhary, 52, always believed that the land would take care of him, and it did. As long as he can remember. However, in 2025, unseasonal rains adversely affected parts of western and central Maharashtra. The ensuing floods destroyed the kharif crop.
When the soil started drying out, Nagubai and her 60-year-old husband Malinath immediately had to think about how they would survive this season. “We paid to fix the damaged topsoil and planted onions. They usually yield quickly. But the crop failed. It created more debt,” said Nagubai, wiping her tears with the end of her floral pink sari.
Later her husband died. He needed to clear the debt of ₹ 14 lakh taken to finance farming and bills arising from Malinath’s hospitalization.
Nagubai and her husband owned 1.5 acres of land in Chincholi village in Dharashiv district of Maharashtra. He had to sell an acre of land to pay his debts. “I lost my husband, my land and my crops,” she says.
The Maharashtra Agriculture Department estimates that 3 million farmers were affected by floods last year, which devastated 6.5 million hectares of cropland between August and September. Rains flattened soya bean fields in Vidarbha, rotted onions in Nashik, destroyed legumes in Marathwada and flooded paddy fields in low-lying belts.
The Maharashtra government announced a relief package of Rs 31,628 crore on October 7. In the following months, many farmers said they had no clear idea of how much they would receive, despite the government’s assessment. Nagubai said she was promised only ₹2,500 two months before her husband died. “I even kept this money because I still don’t have my wife’s death certificate,” she explains, sitting in a small pink room with one corner designated as a kitchen.
According to the State Relief and Rehabilitation Department, crop loss compensation was ₹18,500 per hectare (1 hectare 2.5 acres) for rain-fed land, ₹27,000 per hectare for irrigated land, ₹32,500 per hectare for horticultural or perennial lands (such as orchards). In addition, if the topsoil was washed away, the farmer would get ₹47,000 per hectare.
To help replenish the topsoil, the government has promised to employ people through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) programme, which guarantees 100 days of work to the unemployed.
Nagubai currently survives on the remaining money from the land deal, ₹1,500 per month from the Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar Anudan Yojana for those below the poverty line, and wage work under MNREGA. He says part of the topsoil of his land was submerged but he spent ₹14,000 to restore it. There was no government aid. Many farmers from the six worst-hit districts of Marathwada and western Maharashtra’s Solapur say they have not received full compensation. Many farmers now pay out of pocket or take out another loan to improve their land and prepare for the rabi crop.
In Dharashiv, the Maharashtra government has identified 7.03 lakh flood-affected farmers. Collector Keerthi Kiran Pujar says compensation of Rs 5.2 lakh has been paid so far. “The rest will receive the funds after completion of e-KYC (Know Your Customer). Most of the farmers have received assistance. Assistance under MNREGA and topsoil replacement money will be given as per the demands raised by farmers with the grama panchayat.” Mantralaya, the administrative headquarters of Maharashtra in Mumbai, did not respond to questions about data from affected areas.
While announcing the relief package, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said, “The package will be distributed to 29 (of 36 districts) farmers before Deepavali (in 2025), covering 253 (358) talukas and more than 2,000 revenue circles. But no one can compensate 100% for the financial and mental crisis of farmers.”
According to the collector’s office, 36 farmers lost their lives in Dharashiv between January and April 2026, while as many as 78 farmers died by suicide between July and December 2025.
disappearing farms
A group of farmers from Rajegaon village gathered in one of the classrooms of the government zilla neighborhood school. Narayan Deshmukh (52) sits on a chair in front of a wall with photographs of India’s leaders from different eras: Fatima Shaikh, Savitribai Phule, Indira Gandhi. “Time is passing. Gradually my land size will decrease. The rain has caused heavy damage. What about our lost farmland? Restoration will cost more than government aid,” he says, then admits: “But every little amount counts.”
Narayan Deshmukh shows the part of his farm that was flooded after heavy rains. | Photo Credit: Emmanual Yogini
Narayan’s farm is on the banks of the Terana river and during unseasonal rains, at least 30 guntas 5 acres of his land was flooded. “This situation is now happening every year as the rain increases. The government opens the gate of the Terana dam without notice and water enters the field.” Other farmers in the group also emphasized the same issue.
Dharashiv district consists of eight talukas, including Umarga, where Rajegaon is located. It covers an area of 7,569 km2 and is characterized by semi-arid terrain with rugged plateaus and river valleys. Manjara, Terna and Sinai rivers flooded last year and excess water entered the fields, affecting 159 villages in six talukas.
Solapur also experienced this situation, with soil erosion, sand accumulation and loss of fertility, especially in the river basins. About 186 kilometers from Rajegaon is Beed’s Mazalgaon taluka, where 30-year-old Baliram Gholap, who owns 5 acres of land, also says he has not received help for topsoil restoration.
“I got only ₹1,000. I don’t want money. Can the government get the restoration work done?” says Gholap, adding that renting a backhoe costs a minimum of ₹ 8,000, while 1 piece of rice costs ₹ 3,000 to ₹ 6,000, depending on the quality of the soil and workmanship.
Gholap faced a loss of ₹1.5 lakh used in cotton cultivation due to unseasonal rains.
“If the cotton had been harvested, I would have earned at least ₹3 lakh. I borrowed ₹1 lakh and now I cannot pay the installments,” he says. He can no longer afford farming and now works in a sugar factory for a salary of ₹10,000 per month. If he doesn’t get permission, he will get another ₹2,000. “I will farm next year when conditions are right.”
A farmer named Samadhan Mhaske from Solapur’s Undargaon near the Sinai river wipes his face and says: “Where is the ₹47,000 per hectare or MNREGA aid? At least 1.5 hectares of topsoil has been washed away, revealing huge sand dunes.”
He, along with his extended family members, owns 4 hectares of irrigated land and has so far received INR 35,000 through direct bank transfer. He also claims that 150 farmers like him have not received any compensation for topsoil restoration. There are 17 more villages near the Sinai river, including Keval, where the waters of the Sinai river enter the fields and take away some of the fertile soil and leave silt.
Low response to MNREGA
As per the MNREGA scheme, facial recognition is mandatory while logging in and out of the National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS) app. Digital inclusion requires geo-tagging assets, an Aadhaar-based payment system and real-time monitoring of business. Many farmers are facing problems due to delays in Aadhaar verification and bank connectivity; This leads to pending wage payments among older workers, women and people in remote villages struggling with biometric authentication and smartphone-based onboarding.
Nagubai, who also has a job card under MNREGA, said, “The payment is irregular. I started working in January and got paid in March. That is 312 Indian rupees per day. If I had worked outside the government scheme, I could have earned 500 Indian rupees.”
Government officials acknowledged that uptake was weak due to irregular payments.
Vidhyasagar Gaikwad, 47, from Dharashiv’s Chincholi village, works as a special assistant in the app, engaging MNREGA workers. He and members of the Maharashtra Gram Rozgar Sahayak Sanstha, a citizens’ group formed in 2016 for the rights of MNREGA workers, are at the protest.
They say thumbprint and facial recognition are not reliable technologies. “There are 70 activities going on in the village at the same time. I have to visit each place twice a day. Now I cover at least 15 km in two shifts, almost four times a day. The government says spend two hours on this work, but we spend almost half a day to record the attendance,” he says.
hope for insurance
After unseasonal rains and flash floods, crops were destroyed overnight and insurance investigation teams emerged. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, there were 49,601 claims amounting to ₹2,226 crore in Dharashiv alone. Many farmers say they are waiting for insurance money.
Avinash Deshmukh is a farmer from Rajegaon. | Photo Credit: Emmanual Yogini
Avinash Deshmukh (42), a sun-scorched farmer in Rajegaon, wearing a clean white shirt and brown trousers, points to the river that flows next to his farm and says: “It’s been nine months and I still haven’t repaired the ditches. I’ve done everything by the book: got insurance, paid premiums on time, reported the damage, but I’m still waiting for the insurance money.”
To calculate insurance claims, the Maharashtra government uses a combination of crop cutting experiment (CCE) and satellite imagery. Under CCE, the State carries out sample harvests on selected farms in a village or insurance unit area. They cut the crops, weigh the crops and estimate the average yield per hectare, giving the actual yield (AY) for that area. This AY is compared to a previously calculated return threshold (YT) using historical production data. If AY is below YT, farmers are entitled to compensation.
Ministry of Agriculture officials, who asked not to be named, claim that the insurer said there was a discrepancy between satellite-based yield assessments, which showed greater crop damage, and CCE data, which reflected lower losses.
While farmers wait for the next monsoon, they hope that there will be no extreme weather conditions this time.
snehal.mutha@thehindu.co.in
Edited by Sunalini Mathew.
