Maruti Bajgude, a farmer from Padalsingi village of the drought-hit Beed district in Maharashtra has dug one of the largest water wells in the region. He was busy making this giant water reservoir in his farmland for the last three years. It is notable that since November 2020, farmers in the northern part of the country especially Punjab were agitating against the farm laws and were blocking the roads. Bajgude, however, has set an example of solving one’s problem on his own.
Maruti Bajgude lives in Padalsingi village of Beed district. The village is situated at a distance of 18KM from Beed on the Dhule-Solapur national highway. At around 400 meters from the highway, Maruti Bajgude owns his ancestral farmland of around 12.5 acres. As the region has always been severely hit by the usual droughts, he could seldom earn anything great through his farming profession. So, he turned into a tent decorator and started providing services for various functions and marriage programs.
Three years ago he conceived the idea of digging a grand well in his own farmland and to end the water problem of his agribusiness for once and all. Maruti Bajgude selected 1 acre of his land and started digging the well. He employed whatever machinery and men he could to make this 41 feet deep well. The diameter of this grand water well measures around 202 feet. The inner wall of the well is built in concrete from almost 6 feet above the bottom. The concrete wall is erected up to 4 feet above the ground level. The well has a storage capacity of around 10 crore liters of water and it is completely filled with water right now. It is also seen on google maps.
Maruti Bajgude is now planning to grow some fruit crops like sweet lime (mosambi), watermelon, and guava on his farm. In the last two and half years to three years, he has spent more than 1.5 Cr rupees in making this well. But he has permanently solved the water problem he used to face. In a report by ABP Majha, Bajgude has said “I own farmland of 12.5 acres. Farming without water is impossible. Every two years or so, we face severe drought in the region. How to do this all without water then? That is why I thought of making a water well that is 41 feet deep and 202 feet wide.”
He further said “I did not keep the dug-out material in the farm itself. I sold it off right away. Had I kept the material in my farmland, I would take 13 to 14 acres which means more than the land I possess. I sold all the soft stone material to the IRB construction company that was building this highway at that time. The deep blasting was done to dig the hard rock. All the hard rock was sold to a stone crushing center.”
Beed is one of the worst drought-hit districts in Maharashtra. The rainfall pattern is uneven. Beed along with a few more nearby districts like Jalna, Parbhani, and Latur in the Marathwada region has been a victim of the El Nino effect in the years 2010 to 2017. The conditions had been so worse that special water trains had to be planned from Miraj in western Maharashtra to Latur in Marathwada. In absence of any great agricultural produce, Beed is looked at as a district that supplies labourers at cheap costs especially for cutting the sugarcane crop. Maruti Bajgude’s example is therefore important and an inspiration for others.
