The monsoon beats a menacing retreat in Marathwada

Bhimabai Ujjan Pawar stands in the slush as his goats search for leaves. She is a single woman from the Pardhi community, a Scheduled Tribe who is socially discriminated against. He has never been to school and does not know his age, but people in the village say he is about 55 years old. Armed with an axe, he moves through a rain-ravaged farm in Warapgaon, a village in Maharashtra’s Beed district, chopping down branches so his goats can feed on leaves they can’t reach. He seems indifferent to the thorns.

“This is all I have left now,” he says, addressing 15 grazing goats, four of which are just babies. “I was selling them and then buying my rations from Kalamb (a village with a market that is accessible by the hamlets in the area). However, I lost 7 kids and four goats in the flood. I had to throw them away. What to do?” he says.

He says he has never seen such heavy rain since he was a child. The rains, which started in July, continued for days and stopped occasionally. While the worst happened in September, what made the situation worse was heavy rains. For example, on September 16, 2025, Beed received 143.7 mm of rainfall, which was the highest rainfall in the region during that 24-hour period.

“We have received more than 130% of the total rainfall this monsoon. Apart from this, Beed is a semi-arid region,” says Beed Collector Vivek Johnson. Marathwada, a region comprising eight districts, is known to be drought-prone with low and erratic rainfall during the monsoon season. Marathwada Divisional Commissioner Jitendra Papalkar says this is the first time in recorded history that the entire district has seen floods.

There were 108 deaths in Marathwada alone. More than 54 lakh farmers were affected and 41 lakh agricultural lands were destroyed. The Maharashtra government announced a package of ₹31,628 crore for flood-affected farmers in the state ahead of Diwali in October, but the disbursement is still pending. Many farmers are burdened with corporate and non-institutional debts and have little ability to repay them.

river forces

“For the first time in history, all the rivers were flooded simultaneously. A large amount of water was released from all the dams and 1.5 lakh cusecs of water were discharged simultaneously. All the rivers were flowing above the danger limit. In Beed alone, we had more than 70 severely affected villages. We had to carry out a helicopter rescue operation in Ashti (a city in Beed),” says Johnson.

Rivers are changing course in many places, Johnson says. “This was particularly observed in Sindphana,” he says. Although Sindphana is a minor tributary of river Godavari, it is an important river in Beed as its drainage basin covers 80% of the district.

Life along the Manjra river was also disrupted. Manjra is a major tributary of the Godavari, India’s second longest river. It originates in the Balaghat district of Beed and passes through Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana before joining the Godavari. It is an important waterway for the region.

Workers in Beed district cut the ruined soyabean crop in the field after the recent floods in Marathwada. | Photo Credit: Emmanual Yogini

“The agriculture is not on the river bank but it is completely damaged. I have 2 acres of land and I had planted soya beans. But look what the rains have done this time,” said Vikas Mahadev Shinde, 32, standing on a damaged bridge over the Manjra river in Bhopla village. The village lies on the border of Dharashiv and Beed districts, both of which are rain-ravaged. Villagers remember that in September, when the river was overflowing, a man was swept away by the strong current before his eyes. Crushed solar panels tell a lot about the strength of the currents.

A few kilometers away, at the confluence of the Bobhati and Khatkal rivers, two tributaries of the Manjra, lies Hanumant Bhosale’s farm. He grew soybeans on two acres of land. He can’t even walk to his field today. “I am 60 years old. Not only me, but even the generations before us had never heard of such floods. We could not have imagined that we would see so much water! The rains started on May 7 (2025) and did not stop,” he says.

sleepless nights

Some villagers described how they had sleepless nights as heavy rains damaged their crops and homes. “The rains were very heavy. We were afraid our houses would be blown away. The water will rise in a few hours,” says 39-year-old Ramraje Prabhu Gond.

In Borgaon, another village on the banks of the Manjra River that wreaks havoc on the district, there is the partially destroyed house of Ramkrushna Rajendra Gavhane. The 31-year-old farmer says he has not received any government aid yet. The government had announced an emergency aid of ₹ 10,000 to those whose houses collapsed. He worries about how he will take care of his family. His aging mother has an injured hip and has difficulty moving. His wife will soon return from her parents’ house after giving birth to their child.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he says, standing outside on the ruins of his home. His four-month-old nephew starts gurgling in the partially collapsed house. His sister is home for the birth. He asks her to come back home. “I don’t want to live with the guilt of hurting their baby.” “How can I leave you alone and run away when you are in distress?” he replies.

Their sick mother worries at the expense of everything: the birth of her daughter, the birth of her daughter-in-law. “Crops are disappearing. It will cost one lakh (rupees) for a Caesarean section,” he says, looking at the idols of gods and goddesses.

Dark Deepavali

Farmers have slowly started receiving compensation, but many are still waiting for compensation. For example, Ramkrushna claims that Gavhane does not have even a single rupee so far. The government had promised to distribute funds before Deepavali in October, but this did not happen in most cases. The entire region operates on an agricultural economy, and its effects are also felt in the markets. The number of visitors to stores decreased.

Subhashchandra Gaurilal Samadaria, owner of Marathwada Textile Shop in Beed’s main market, says, “Earlier, you could not find a place to stop even for a minute on this road. Today, look at the empty road. All the small shopkeepers who were running their shops on credit had to close down. We are the biggest and oldest shop here, but even today we are finding it difficult to do so.” Nearly 60 people work in the three-storey store, which was established in 1972. “I started losing my cool even on the smallest things. Things have not improved this festive season. We all depend on the farmers here for work,” he says, adding that he does not know how he will pay salaries.

Atul Porwal of Porwal Shoes, a 25-year-old business, says the entire infrastructure is geared towards agriculture. “We have no MIDC (Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation) here, we have no industry. There are no other employment opportunities other than agriculture. So our economy is still rural, agriculture-based,” he says. He says his friend who sells home appliances told him that people don’t buy refrigerators, air conditioners or any appliances. It usually receives a large influx of visitors during season transitions, when people come to buy shoes, but this year there are very few.

Farmers in debt

Udaysinha Navnath Shinde of Borgaon village has received ₹9,500 in two installments so far. He has 6 acres of land. The government deposited ₹6,500 into his account before Diwali and ₹3,000 on October 29. But he is a worried man. “The cost of clearing my field is six times this compensation. Since the soil is completely washed away, I will have to silt my farm again after clearing the rotting crop. The rabi (winter) season of cultivation seems like a distant dream,” he says. Showing his well under the debris, he says that the pumps and sprinkler sets stopped working due to water.

He is already in debt. “I have a loan of ₹10 lakh. I got my daughter married just a few months ago. I took the loan for this. I thought I would sell these soyabeans and repay the loan, but look what’s left in my field now,” he points around, standing ankle-deep in slush. He says loan sharks started calling. “My daughter’s relatives asked for a gift. How can I give anything to anyone? I couldn’t even clean the rotting crop in the field,” he says, angrily tearing up the rotting soybeans.

Dattatray Bhagwat Shinde, another farmer in the village, says the cost of clearing the field is ₹10,000 per acre. Many of the farmers lost their cattle and the cattle feed became soggy and had to be thrown away.

Ismail Sheikh of Daithna in Ambajogai taluka in Beed district asks: “Why do we farm? To support the tractor salesman, to support the fertilizer shop or to run my own house? Farming is looking increasingly unsustainable. We had sown the rabi season two weeks ago. But the onslaught of the receding monsoon has put it to waste.” He says education and healthcare costs are rising, and floods and droughts are affecting them. He mentions that a villager in the neighboring village received 3,500 rupees per acre for his 10 acres of land. “The cost of soya cultivation per acre is ₹ 20,000. Not even counting the cost of clearing the land due to previous damage. Is this a joke?”

This week, the Maharashtra government announced the distribution of ₹ 8,000 crore to around 40 lakh farmers in Maharashtra. Small and marginal farmers called for complete abolition of loans. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis this week announced the formation of a nine-member committee and loan waiver.

vinaya.deshpande@thehindu.co.in

Edited by Sunalini Mathew.