Latur Water Train : When the train’s whistle became the sound of music

The face of water crisis, Latur is actually a thriving, vibrant city

 

 A policeman stand guards a Central Railway train loading water to transport to drought affected Latur District from Miraj station near Sangli on Sunday. (PTI Photo)

Steam-washed railway wagons rolled into town on Tuesday bearing water for the residents of Latur city, the town which has suddenly become the face of Marathwada’s acute water scarcity. That scarcity, and the agrarian crisis emerging from consecutive drought years actually has its epicentre in three districts of the Marathwada region — Latur, Osmanabad and Beed. But it’s Latur city, whose five lakh population has necessitated the water trains, that is making headlines.

Admittedly, those headlines in recent months have revolved around the water scarcity — clamping of Section 144 of the CrPC prohibiting crowds around water bodies, about the sudden death of a woman while waiting for water in a queue, about the early closure of schools and coaching classes in order to nudge migrant students back to their home districts and thereby reduce demand for water.

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• Special train carrying 5 lakh litres of water reaches Latur after 18 hr journey
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• A train with 50 tankers pulls in late at night, raising a cheer over 300 km away in Latur
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• Drought country faces worst year: Waiting for a drop before dawn
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• Failed crops, parched fields, now Marathwada faces the great thirst
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• In the middle of monsoon season in Marathwada, no water to drink
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• Upper dams to release water for drought-hit districts; cabinet meet in Sept in Marathwada

Still, compared to the other two district headquarters where bureaucrats are now working full-time on drought relief works, it’s a travesty that Latur, aided somewhat by the images of the 1970s-style ‘water trains’, is seen as a town blighted by drought, a previous plague, a previous earthquake.
 

 Workers fill water in Central Railway train tanks to transport to drought affected Latur District from Miraj station near Sangli on Sunday. PTI Photo

For Latur is nothing like Beed or Osmanabad towns. A political nerve centre and capital of late Vilasrao Deshmukh’s constituency, the town had a multiplex long before some of Mumbai’s more distant suburbs did. While the people of Beed hear the promise of a railway line around every election, the project that locals recognise as Gopinath Munde’s dream is still under construction. Latur, in contrast, got its broad gauge line in 2010. One of the most comfortable journeys home to Mumbai from Marathwada remains the overnight train through Latur.

Latur also has an airport, upgraded about a decade ago with a new runway. Weekly Kingfisher flights from Mumbai via Nanded have touched down at Latur airport since the end of 2008, though commercial flights to Latur are still to restart.

The other trader town in Marathwada is Jalna, a hub of Marwari businessmen and industrialists. But it was Latur whose fortunes as a city prospered quicker, thanks to a combination of factors including Vilasrao’s resolute backing; the town’s tradition as a student-magnet owing to the ‘Latur pattern’ that guaranteed results of 90 percentile and above; the well-established market place for pulses and oilseeds; the stable political control of the market committee and more.

Jalna and Latur became district headquarters the same year, but Latur is now a hub for the tertiary sector. Healthcare professionals, healthcare centres, teachers, professors, educational institutions, transporters,

restaurateurs, accountants, every service a visiting businessman needs is readily available. There are over 100 colleges in Latur, affiliated to Nanded university.

In fact, even though it is located right in the middle of drought-prone Marathwada, one of the reasons for Latur’s pre-eminence has been its relative comfort vis a vis water supply with as many as 10 barrages across the Manjara river that has now run dry.

None of this is visible in Beed city where there is now an inexorable migration of people from the parched countryside. The other five-lakh-plus town in Marathwada is Aurangabad, with its tradition of tourism and administration — the city was a key centre of the Nizam’s rule. It is also set to see a further spurt in growth once the Shendra-Bidkin Industrial Park, one of the early bird projects of the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor is completed.

Latur’s graph has declined in recent times, its growth trajectory as muddled as its politics. But the city is more than its water woes, Latur’s very urbane and educated folk will agree.