Drought-affected the dry spell of rain has gone on for destroying crops.Express photo by Narendra vaskarOn September 26, the Maharashtra government declared a drought in 265 out of the state’s 358 talukas, across its 36 districts, with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis terming the crisis the worst the state has endured since 1972. With no rainfall in over 20 days during the crucial kharif crop season and the Southwest monsoon receding, the crisis is expected to worsen in the summer months next year. Map showing drought-hit Marathwada districts.In the state’s Marathwada region, including Jalna, Beed and Latur districts that are among the worst affected, a drought year is especially hard on the women. While most of them work on fields along with the men of the household, their days start much before daybreak, usually around 4 am — a relentless cycle of cooking, cleaning, tending to the children and livestock, besides spending backbreaking hours on the land they till but don’t own.Though the government, while notifying the drought, has activated relief measures such as land revenue waivers and crop loan restructuring, it lacks specific provisions to address the disproportionate impact of the drought on women agricultural labourers.‘Cook, clean, take care of kids’According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey, 2025, while 82% of the rural female workforce in Maharashtra is employed in agriculture, less than a fifth of operational landholdings are in their names.In July, the state enacted the Maharashtra Women Farmers Empowerment Act, 2026, a law that moves away from the rigid requirement of land title ownership to grant legal recognition to women farm labourers and those working in animal husbandry, poultry, dairy farming, livestock rearing and other farm-related activities. ⠀On October 2, the state began issuing Woman Farmer Certificates under the new law, with an aim to grant women agriculturists better access to welfare policies, programmes, schemes and credit. The government said over 20 lakh women have applied so far.Story continues below this adThe Jadhavs are a family of 15 members, who live in three houses along the road. This year’s poor rainfall has meant that both the men and women in the family have started working as farm labourers in sugarcane fields in the region. But for the women of the household, the water-filling chore has added to their already demanding routines.With the borewell set to run out of water soon, once a week, the family rents a bullock cart and brings two 1,000-litre water tanks filled from a water storage facility 2 km away. ⠀“Our family has three acres, where we grow cotton and soyabean, but this year, there has hardly been any yield. We will soon leave for Baramati to work in sugarcane fields there. There too, while the men only have to work on the fields, we will have to not only do that but cook, clean, and take care of the children,” says Suman.Once the men and women of the household leave, Asabai, the matriarch, will stay back with the cattle and some of the older children, including Disha, who go to schools nearby.Daily trips for waterAt a sugarcane field in Karajkheda, a village in Dharashiv district, Sonali Aditrao, 39, sits down to eat her lunch of bajra roti and dal. Sonali, wearing a blue overshirt and a printed scarf to shield her from the scorching heat, has been working on her neighbour’s field since 8 am.This year’s poor rainfall has stunted the sugarcane crop and its tips have dried up. Sonali says she has been hired to harvest whatever can be salvaged from the crop.Story continues below this ad Sonali Aditrao works in a sugarcane field at Karajkheda. Express photo by Narendra vaskarThe half-acre that Sonali’s family owns in the village, where they grow soyabean and bajra, barely sustains the family, so she usually works on her neighbour’s sugarcane field, earning Rs 300 a day. But this year, she has the additional burden of fetching water.Her day begins around 5 am, with her husband and daughter Shravani joining her to fetch water from a nearby school compound. So do most others in the village, who take turns to queue up at the tap in the school. A borewell nearby, connected to the tap at her home, is now almost dry.“Filling water and rationing it for all our daily needs has become a full-time job. My buffalo and its calf need about 30-50 litres of water a day. Even when I leave for work, my husband has to queue up to fill water. We have ended up losing one person’s wages,” Sonali says.Sonali says they make several trips to the school tap and back every day, until the Sintex tanks at home are filled up.The chore done, Sonali’s daughter prepares to go to junior college (Class 12), a 30-km bus ride from home, while she gets ready to leave for the sugarcane field after cooking and packing lunch for herself and Shravani. The mother and daughter usually leave home by 8 am.Story continues below this ad Drought-affected the dry spell of rain has gone on for destroying crops.Express photo by Narendra vaskarSonali’s work on the neighbour’s sugarcane field earns her about Rs 300 a day. Besides their household expenses, the family has to factor in the money needed for the education for their two children — her son, a BA student, stays in a hostel over 40 km from home. “My daughter travels to college by bus… that alone costs us Rs 8,000 a year,” says Sonali. “This week, my daughter said we have to pay Rs 1,100 as her examination fee. We were told that the government has announced that this fee will not be taken because of the drought, but the college administration said they have no such orders as of now,” she says.Sonali says her husband worked for a day at a nearby unit to be able to pay the fee. That day, the family could not fill enough water. “Working on the field or filling water is part of our daily routine but with the drought, expenses are bound to increase, including food prices. Managing the household expenses, rationing food, keeping money aside for emergencies… all this has become difficult,” says Sonali.On September 23, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis visited Sonali’s Karajkheda village as part of his tour to drought-hit regions. “I tried to speak to him, but there were too many people,” she says.Mangala Bhosale, 50, and Pratibha Bhosale, 41, farm hands working on the sugarcane field with Sonali, say they too couldn’t meet Fadnavis. If they could, they would have asked for help. “The government can at least say they won’t collect fees in colleges and schools, make sure ration and schemes for women are paid on time,” says Mangala, who is one of the nearly 2 crore beneficiaries of the state government’s flagship Ladki Bahin scheme that offers Rs 1,500 every month to eligible women. “But the payments are sometimes delayed by over a month,” she says.Story continues below this ad In Latur, Sangeeta Gaikwad is on her way to the local market to sell her goats since “arranging water for them is getting difficult”.Express photo by Narendra vaskarOn September 25, the Beed unit of the Mahila Kisan Adhikaar Manch, an organisation for women farmers, wrote to the government saying it should factor in the impact of the drought on women and landless labourers. Among other measures, they sought additional ration supplies of 10 kg and timely payment of installments for schemes such as the Laadki Bahin, to enable women to manage their finances.A cycle of debtIn Beed’s Kathoda village, Suman Owhal, a 50-year-old, who worked as a farm labourer until seven years ago, says she now finds herself bound to the loan calendar.Earlier, every year, after the crop on their half-acre field was harvested, Suman and her husband would travel to sugarcane fields in western Maharashtra, cutting the crop and loading it onto trucks that carried them to factories.“Earlier, I used to travel with my parents; after my marriage, I started going with my husband. We would travel after Dussehra and return home in March, for Holi, in time for the sowing season,” she says. Nimbabai Brahmane checking her destroyed groundnut crop in Sakri taluka in Dhule.Express photo by Narendra vaskarThe couple, who were paid Rs 366 for every tonne of sugarcane they cut and loaded, were attached to a mukadam or a contractor, who they would rely on for advance payments to meet expenses at home. Suman says the system ensured that she could get her four daughters and a son a basic education and get them married.Story continues below this adThe work on the sugarcane fields, however, meant waking up at 4 am and working for 16-18 hours, including heaving 30-40 kg of the crop to be loaded onto vehicles. The work left her with severe back pain.Seven years ago, when Suman’s husband met with an accident, the couple stopped working on the sugarcane fields. She then took a loan from the village moneylender at a 5% rate of interest to manage household expenses. To repay the moneylender, she took a loan from a microfinance on a lower interest rate. Additionally, she borrowed Rs 60,000 from the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana to buy two goats.“I am stuck in this cycle of loans and repayment. I have no savings. Every time there is a health scare or any other emergency, like a crop failure, I have to take a loan. I spend Rs 6,000 a month to pay back these loans. This is unending, but I can’t afford to default,” Suman says.Manisha Tokle, who works with women farmers in Beed, says they are highly sensitive to community standing and ensure their loans are repaid, but end up getting stuck in a cycle of loans as they try to manage household expenses.“Women pay each of the instalments responsibly, be it to moneylenders, microfinance companies or women self-help groups, even though it pushes them deeper in the debt cycle. When governments announce waivers on loans for crops, they never consider these smaller loans that women take,” Tokle says.Story continues below this adLooking for ‘a little push’ Mangala Bhosale working on a sugarcane field in Dharashiv. Express photo by Narendra vaskarBack in Karajkheda village, Sonali has applied for the Women Farmer Certificate after the gram sabha told her that it might bring benefits, including employment and money to start a small business.She sounds hopeful, saying she will do whatever it takes to ensure her children get a life different from hers, especially her daughter Shravani. “I was in Class 9 when I was made to drop out of school and got married soon after. I want my daughter to study as much as she wants. We do not expect the government to do a lot but a little push to secure our children’s future is all we ask,” she says.