MUMBAI: “With our fields withering away, dowry demands having gone up, families are being forced to put off weddings,” lady sarpanch Sumantai Bhoge from the Umarga village of Nanded district said.

According to Bhoge, it is the same story across 20 other villages in the district, ensuring that countless marginal and small farmers are struggling to make ends meet and complaining that government schemes and subsidies do not reach them. Actively involved in financial transactions and politics,

Bhoge, speaking on the second day of the Tanishka – Women’s Dignity forum workshop, claimed that the losses range between Rs 50,000 and Rs 3 lakh per hectare, depending on the crop.

“Some farmers from distant hamlets are witnessing two decade old plantations wilt away,” Bhoge said, adding that the over-sowing of cash crops such as sugarcane and fruits over the past decade has depleted the groundwater table. She points to a lady sitting next to her and claims that she was married off by her father after paying Rs 9 lakh as dowry, which was supplemented by a pair of bullocks and a buffalo. For Bhoge and other elected representatives from Nanded and Latur, cases of such nature have become very common.

“The drought has spiked the dowry rates, which earlier were around Rs 2 to 3 Lakh. Now, farmers are demanding more, with a view to using the dowry money to buy tankers and fodder,” Bhoge said. Their requests to the State have always fallen on deaf ears. No official is interested and they are ‘waved away’ with ‘it’s your culture’, Bhoge added.

Bhoge along with her deputy Asha Shinde are now tackling government officials to ensure that tankers are sent to their region. Shinde, a mother of three, lives in Dongre, a small town in Nanded. She walks 3 km to attend the daily hearings of the village followed by a 10 km marathon to feed her cattle at a state-run camp. “ We are thankful to Sakal for hearing our pleas, which will be convey to the government,” she said.