Australia Weather News

In India, 330 million people across 10 states are in the grip of a crippling drought and heatwave.

Supplies are so depleted in one city that it is entirely reliant on drinking water delivered daily by train.

At 8:00am, when train drivers Ajit Patare and JS Moreh step onto the platform at the end of their shift, the temperature in Latur, Maharashtra, is already above 30 degrees.

Although exhausted, each is proud.

Their daily cargo stops Latur's citizens from becoming water refugees.

"Happiness," Mr Moreh says of his emotion.

"I feel really happy that I'm bringing water to this town."

Their train has become known as the Jaldoot — translated from Hindi, it means "water saviour".

Today, its nine-hour journey from a dam near the coast has delivered parched Latur 2.5 million litres of water.

Dams and rivers are all dry — the result of successive poor monsoons and rampant depletion of groundwater by agriculture.

For anyone without the often illegally sunk bores, the train has been their sole source of water for several weeks now.

Lives spent waiting

Once the wagons have been emptied and filtered, they are taken by tankers to filling points, where residents queue, often for hours, to get their meagre allocation.

"What can I do?" asks mother Rajeshree Mane, whose children are helping her to carry several precious containers home.

"I have to stand here for hours to get some water to run my house.

"I stand in queue for water at 2:00am and my turn only comes around 6:00am."

Elsewhere in the city, Vishwanath Gaikadh wipes the sweat away after he and his wife finish loading a tuk-tuk with water they have spent five hours waiting for.

"I've filed up 15 vessels. This is what I've been doing recently," he laments of the constant quest for water.

"I queued up here yesterday, but didn't get anything, so I returned empty handed."

In surrounding districts, villagers must choose — pay exorbitant prices for privately-supplied water, or consume the murky contents at the bottom of wells which have not yet dried up altogether.

In Wardaal, villagers form a human chain to pass pots up from below the (usually submerged) pump, where Suresh Kasbe is filling them from what is left.

"In this village, this well was the only source of water," he says of the muddy, algal pond.

"Now we're trying to pay as much as we can to get water tankers."

Last week, the Indian Government told the Supreme Court 10 states and an estimated 330 million people — a quarter of India's population — were affected.

Farmers, animals suffer

At a livestock market in the village of Nalegaon, Sachin Sugaonkar is among many, trying to sell two oxen he can simply no longer feed.

"I just can't see them die in front of my eyes, so I want to sell them off to someone," he admits.

He knows he will be lucky to get half their value, but says he simply could not watch them waste away.

"They are like my children," he says.

"I can't see them starving."

Thirsty sugar's bitter aftertaste

Sugarcane is reported to account for just 4 per cent of Maharashtra's farmland, but use 70 per cent of its water.

It needs more water than the semi-arid climate can provide, but farmers, encouraged to grow cane by proliferating co-operatives, have simply tapped groundwater.

Canegrower Hanmant Reddy says his family used to sell 250 tonnes a year to the mills, but now cannot grow any because of the lack of water.

"There were two bore wells over here but even they have dried up," he says, pointing.

"Whatever little water I have, I use it for domestic use and for my animals."

Relief promised

The Government has allocated 20 billion rupees ($400 million) to deal with the crisis.

In his monthly radio address, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the state would help, but urged people to change their habits.

"To fight the drought and water scarcity, the governments will do their work," Mr Modi said.

"An awareness has been seen with regard to the value of water.

"In such places, there is sensitivity and a will to do something to conserve."

Lack of rain stops play

500 kilometres away in Mumbai, even India's national obsession is feeling the conservation pressure.

Ketan Tirodkar petitioned the Bombay High Court, arguing, given the circumstances, watering cricket grounds simply could not be justified.

After an appeal, India's Supreme Court has agreed.

As of today, it has ordered the Indian Premier League out of Maharashtra.

The remaining IPL matches scheduled in Mumbai and Pune have been cancelled, forcing the managers of the T20 tournament to scramble for alternative venues.

Monsoon hopes high

After successive years of low rainfall, this year's monsoon season is forecast to exceed the average.

India's meteorological department says, based on an analysis of previous post El-Nino patterns, it is predicting 111 per cent of the long-term average rainfall between June and September.

It is expected to arrive in Maharashtra by mid-June.

Until then, authorities say Latur's "water saviour" train will continue its daily runs.