Village vignettes - the rrigation tank, almost dried with two months of filling.

Malleshwaram cheruvu, the main tank of our panchayat. The entire area here is the tank which gets filled with water from the surrounding catchment. It used to fill every year and overflow. For 10 years we have see only a dry tank due to failing rains, and an exhasuted groundwater table.

The tank overflowed during the unprecendted rains this years after nearly a decade - and now, a few months later, there is only a little water in the pits.

This is what happens when one drills out the groundwater to 1000 feet over 30 years of borewells and electricity and water intensive cropping. Even the bounty of nature is not able to help.