India's drought migrants head to cities in desperate search for water -Vidhi Doshi

-The Guardian

Parts of India are being parched by a drought that means farmers are unable to irrigate their fields, with some areas even running out of drinking water

Mumbai: No one in the slum of Murtinagar wants to play with Temri and Chinna. The brother and sister don’t speak the local Hindi or Marathi languages – they came here, to Mumbai, India’s financial capital, 10 days ago from their village, Andhra, and grew up speaking the regional language of Telegu. Jaya Kummari, their mother, brought Chinna and Temri to Mumbai because of a drought that has left Andhra without water.

In the corner of the one-bedroom apartment that their parents are renting for 4,000 rupees (£40) a month, Temri and Chinna play board games. “We miss our friends,” Chinna says.

The children are missing school and keep asking their mother when they can go home. “What are we supposed to do?” Jaya says. “There’s not even water to drink.”

 

The Kummaris are rice farmers. Rice is a water-intensive crop; it takes more than 2,500 litres of water to produce one kilo (pdf). Usually the Kummaris can harvest their crop twice a year but, since the drought, they’ve suffered enormous financial losses. “No one in the village had water,” Kummari says. “We had no choice but to come here.”

Please click here to read more.