What’s more life-threatening, ravines or dacoits? You’ll be surprised in Bhind and Morena, says Mukul Sharma.

THIS is a cancer that affects whole villages. Like the cancerous cells in the human body, this one too spreads fast, but unlike the deadly disease, is not being checked. No chemotherapy to zap the bad cells here. Ravines are gobbling up whole villages and communities in Bhind and Morena districts in Madhya Pradesh, destroying their houses and wasting away the soil.

It’s estimated that ravines have affected 948 villages in Bhind and Morena districts. Mrigpura village in Morena is being gobbled up by the ravines so rapidly that all the land around it has turned into deep pits. Devdutta, who shared one of the patches along with 15 families, says, ‘‘We have no place to stay any more. People have settled on whichever patch of land they found. The village as we knew it is now divided into 18 parts. What could be the life of any person when his place is divided into so many parts, when there is no land to till, no pastures and no work?’’

Ravines were blamed for shielding the dreaded dacoits of Chambal. But when hundreds of them surrendered in 1972, the government didn’t feel the need to reclaim ravines any more

Lack of vegetation helps rainwater sweep away the upper portion of the land. The fast-flowing water creates nallahs, big cracks and fissures which develop slowly or quickly, depending on the rainwater, and become ravines. Once even a small ravine is formed, every rainfall makes it bigger by creating holes in the front as well as the corners. Scientists explain that in the specific context of Bhind and Morena districts, the light and alluvial kind of soil, coupled with deforestation, increasing population pressure, faulty irrigation projects and short-term developmental schemes seemed to have fuelled the formation of ravines.

Chursalai village is 17 kilometres away from Amba, but has to be covered by foot or camel. Since the last two years, the ravines have been steadily gobbling up and destroying village land. Ramjee Lal says nobody in the village, which numbers 50 houses, has agricultural land now. The villagers either do some cultivation on the riverbank or cut forest trees to sell to the cities’ markets. Be it farming, employment, schools, roads, electricity or hospitals, the place has nothing to offer except the bare minimum vestiges of human survival.
Though it’s situated near the Chambal river, there is a shortage of drinking water. The village now has only a single well that provides water for a maximum of an hour a day. Villagers have to go to Chambal river and get water on the camels’ back.

Fifty kilometres away, the ravines have carved up Rudawali village, with a population of 5,000, into three segments. Almost half the village, comprising houses, schools and streets, has been turned into ravines. In the middle of the village, 50-60 feet deep ravines are present.

Virendra Kumar’s house is partly breached and can be eroded any time. ‘‘Where else do we go?’’ he asks, ‘‘Those who could afford safer places have left the village. But the Dalits have no other residential place and no money to buy one.’’ Not a single hand-pump is working, and groundwater levels have dipped so much the water level of wells has sunk to 200 feet.

In Porsha block of Morena district, Ratanbasai village has split into eight new segments. The streets and roads have been destroyed and it takes a tough walk across three kilometres to cover all segments of the old village. The ravines are eating into the social life of the villages. A villager narrates how it’s now a problem to get their children married.

Nayakpura, Rubara, Ajitpura, Khadoli, Jaghona, Rithona, Mahuwa, Sarsani, Gaushpur are among the innumerable ravine-affected villages in this region. The Chambal Division Commissioner’s Office at Gwalior estimates that in Chambal Division, which has an area of 16.14 lakh hectares, around 20 per cent of the division, i.e. around 3.107 lakh hectares are ravines. The ravines have spread along the main rivers of the region, which include Chambal, Quari, Lasan, Seep, Vaishali, Kuno, Parvati, Sanka and Sindh. The worst ravines are in the vicinity of Chambal river and are expanding faster than ever before.

Ravines are by no means a recent problem — thousands of hectares of fertile land along the banks of rivers like Yamuna, Chambal, Mahi and their tributaries have been ruined by ravine formation in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat. But the rapid spread of ravines is a recent phenomenon, more so in Chambal.

And with no definitive survey being carried out in the last 20-25 years, governmental and non-governmental organisations posit differing estimates. The Science Centre at Gwalior, which started an awareness campaign on this issue, could only quote the study done by the Centre for Science and Environment, Delhi: ‘‘In the last 30 years, ravines have increased by 36 per cent in Bhind and Morena districts. Between 1943-1950, every year 800-hectare area became ravines in these districts. Between 1950-1975, ravine formation increased, at the rate of 5,000 hectares area every year. Its main reason was large-scale deforestation. Only 20.58 per cent land has forest cover in these districts.’’

The absence of accurate data has fuelled dire predictions. Dr. K. S. Senger of Government Girls College, Morena, says by 2050, additional 52,000-hectares agricultural land in this region would turn into ravines. Around 1,500 villages would be ravine-affected and the per capita land availability would come down from the present 0.33 hectare to a mere 0.124 hectare.

The ravines have been spreading despite various government programmes. In 1970-71, the ‘ravine agriculture scheme’ was launched with the purpose of restoring shallow ravines for cultivation. Until 1990, only 1,175 hectares of land had been restored, but the total expenditure was more than one crore. A central scheme to last over 28 years was also launched in 1971 by the Ministry of Home Affairs, with an estimated expenditure of a whopping Rs 1,224 crore. But in 1972, the scheme was terminated in its first phase itself.