X: @prashanthamine
Mumbai: The real identity of the small sleepy village of Massajog close to Kaij in Beed district is due to its breakfast of onion poha, spicy moth beans (matki) and tea served in an Alice in Wonderland like tiny tea cup, hooliganism is not its true identity! Marathwada region today is suffering from many problems such as economic backwardness, lack of industry, incomplete irrigation system, incomplete railway network, lack of quality education.
The Marathwada liberation struggle has completed 76 years. Marathwada has been freed from the tyrannical regime of the Nizam of Hyderabad, but unfortunately we have to say that its people have not been freed from backwardness and hooliganism. The other identity of Marathwada is the land of saints. But that identity has been left far behind, and unfortunately, Marathwada has now come to be identified as the land of gangsters.
Geographically, Beed district is at the mid-point of Maharashtra, but today it is at the center for different reasons due to increasing crime.
There is no discussion on what has happened to the overall development of Marathwada in the last 76 years, whether the government has ever issued a white paper, whether factories have come to Aurangabad, Jalna, Nanded and Latur districts. At the same time, agro-processing industries have come only in Latur, Nanded and Parbhani districts.
If we look at Marathwada region, Beed, Dharashiv and Hingoli districts are known as agricultural districts or agricultural divisions. Although the thermal power plant is at Parli-Vaijanath, Beed district is still backward in terms of industry and manufacturing. The same situation is also in the neighboring Dharashiv district.
Some years ago the government had announced setting up of a custard apple processing plant in Beed district. Neighboring Dharashiv district is famous for its pomegranates, Khava (condensed milk), Jaggery and Khandsari industries. Hingoli district is famous for its turmeric. Parbhani and Jalna districts are famous for oilseeds and crop-seeds. Hingoli district is famous as a No Industry district. Because not a single industry has come up there till date. Setting up an agro-based processing industry is the real need today.
Unfortunately, today Beed district and Marathwada in turn are famous for hooliganism. There is no major industry, lack of quality education facilities, and not much income is being earned from agriculture, so the unemployed youth have started following the path of hooliganism in search of quick money. There is no tension of searching for a job, power can be gained through fear and terror, and anything that can be achieved through wicked ways, if all this is achieved with political blessings, then who would not want it.
Politics had been there into the cooperative sector till now, but now hooliganism has been added into it in Beed, Latur and Osmanabad district, which is a new dimension that is being added to it in the form of Valmik Karad.
It is a common occurrence now in Beed district where farmers who do not have even an inch of farm land against their names, are pocketing government subsidies or crop damage compensations for their crop losses. Bogus bank accounts and bogus farmers have become common feature. If such bogus farmers are not compensated for their losses, political pressure on bank employees from above has become a daily occurrence.
Gangs of such unemployed people have started roaming around recovering loan interest installments from farmers and people alike. Whether it is the illegal dredging and smuggling of sand from the Godavari river basin, or the illegal smuggling of fly-ash from the thermal power plant at Parli-Vaijanath, or the awarding of contracts to contractors who have been shortlisted by setting aside the provision of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme in the procurement of agricultural materials, political interference is being seen in all of them.
In revenue villages like Shirsala and Pohner, even today a Talathi does not stay in office for more than four months. In many villages, agricultural land maps are not available, because land is not allowed to be measured. District Cooperative Bank employees are literally afraid to work in some revenue villages. Because there are bogus farmers and bogus beneficiaries who are adept at taking free benefits of government schemes. Talathi are like village sarpanchs, no one stays in office for long because of political terror.
In Marathwada region, where there is water scarcity, it is a tragedy to have a liquor factory in Aurangabad. Except for a Skoda car manufacturing factory near Aurangabad, no other such big industry exists at present. There was a Videocon factory, which has now been permanently closed. A railway bogie manufacturing factory has started operating in Latur.
Next year, Jayakwadi Dam will complete 50 years. Today, irrigation canals in many villages are in a bad condition. Trees have grown in the canals and water has started leaking. To solve the problem of water scarcity in Marathwada, the Marathwada Water Grid Project was announced in 2019, but after the subsequent change of government, this ambitious project was shelved.
There is a plan to connect 11 major irrigation projects in Marathwada through pipelines and divert additional water to water-scarce districts. Until this project is declared a national project, it seems difficult to complete this project. Until this project is implemented, farmer suicides in Marathwada will not stop. Now there is a new carrot that is being dangled, that is of Interlinking of Rivers which at present is a mere slogan.
There is no concrete official data available on how much of river waters has been utilized from the water allocated by various water tribunals for Marathwada till date. Sixty percent of the water needs of Marathwada region are dependent on the South-West monsoon and is used for agriculture and domestic consumption. Of late, since 2016, the monsoons have begun to play truant. There has been dry spell for two to four months, and sometimes it covers the entire monsoon season, and a drought has to be declared.
Apart from Walunj, Chikhalthana and Shendra-Bidkin Industrial MIDCs, not much manufacturing has taken root and grown in other places in Marathwada is a matter of research. The textile industry of Aurangabad, Jalna and Paithan is in dire straits. The once famous Himru shawl has now disappeared somewhere.
Once, Shiv Sena senior leader and former minister Diwakar Raote said that the reason why the custard apples in Marathwada are so delicious in size and taste is because of the amount of barium salts present in the soil here, which makes the fruits so juicy and delicious. However, according to the government there are no minerals or rare metals to be found in the soil of Marathwada.
One of the many reasons as to why Marathwada region has remained backward in terms of economic development, is because the political leadership that is divided into factions whose sphere of political influence is often confined to a limited area. Apart from the late Vilasrao Deshmukh and the late Gopinath Munde, there is no other political leader who commands influence over entire Marathwada.
Marathwada region has not been short of political leadership. Former Lok Sabha Speaker Shivraj Patil-Chakurkar hails from Latur district. Former Chief Minister and later the Union Home Minister, Shankarrao Chavan hailed from Nanded district, Marathwada’s first woman Lok Sabha MP Keshar Kaku Kshirsagar hailed from Beed district, late Pramod Mahajan hailed from Dharashiv (Osmanabad) district, late Vilasrao Deshmukh from Latur, late Gopinath Munde was from Beed, Shivajirao Patil-Nilangekar, Sundarrao Solanke, Raosaheb Danve, Ashokrao Chavan and many other political stalwarts have come from this region.
Marathwada has given Maharashtra four Chief Ministers – Shankarrao Chavan, Shivajirao Patil-Nilangekar, Vilasrao Deshmukh and Ashokrao Chavan.
Another reason for backwardness is the incomplete railway network and the road transport system connecting it.
One of the main reasons for this is that the headquarters of the South-Central Railway is still located in Hyderabad, Telangana state. Even though Marathwada region falls under the Nanded railway division, the office of the Divisional Railway Manager is in located in Hyderabad. The office of the new Divisional Railway Manager for Marathwada needs to be established in Aurangabad or Nanded, so that the railways in Marathwada can develop rapidly.
Since Marathwada does not have its own separate railway zone, it has to depend on Telugu speaking officials from Hyderabad for approval of railway development projects. If the ticket inspectors and senior officials in Marathwada are Telugu speaking natives from neighboring Telangana, how ever would local youth ever get jobs in the railways in Marathwada?
If an area is to develop, it is necessary to have a network of railways, air services, and roads in that area. Today, whatever railway network there is, there are no roads, air connectivity and ancillary infrastructure. Therefore, industries and manufacturing have not grown as desired.
The Jalna-Khamgaon railway line was proposed by the British 110 years ago and is still proposed. This project is an important project connecting Marathwada and Vidarbha. The work on the Ahmednagar-Beed-Parli railway line has been stalled for the last five years.
The work on the Manmad-Mudkhed railway line, the Jalna-Jalgaon railway line, the Yavatmal-Nanded railway line, the Nanded-Wardha railway line, the Solapur-Tuljapur-Dharashiv railway line is still in progress. When will it be completed, it all depends on the Telugu officials of the South Central Railway sitting in Hyderabad.
The air transport has not been expanded beyond Aurangabad, Nanded and to some extent Latur. Regular domestic air service to Latur has not started yet.
The real identity of Marathwada is as the land of saints. How did it infamously become to be known as the land of gangsters now? It still is a mystery as to why a pilgrim tourism circuit has not been developed in Marathwada when there are religious and tourist places like Parli Vaijnath, Ghrisheneshwar, Aundhanagnath, Ambejogai, Nanded, Tuljapur, Ajantha-Ellora etc.
Although Tuljapur has an engineering college, the region is bereft of any major industry. The first rural medical college in Maharashtra, probably in rural India, was established in Ambejogai. There is a Hotel Management College is in Aurangabad. Apart from Nanded, Latur and Aurangabad, there are no other districts of Marathwada that have educational facilities like those in Mumbai or Pune. Even though the Latur pattern is being praised in the education sector today, young boys and girls are still seen making a beeline to Mumbai and Pune to pursue higher education.
Until the problems of agriculture, education, industry and business, water, and jobs are not solved, unemployed youth without jobs and businesses feel closer to power through fear of nepotism and the political support of Valmik Karad like him.
Till date, so many sessions of the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha have been held, many sessions of the Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council have also been held, but till date, but no one has ever heard that the issues of Marathwada have ever been discussed in the Legislative Assembly through the final week resolution. Despite all this glory and potential, the puzzle of why Marathwada is still so backward remains unsolved.
