Latur Battles Water Crisis and Drought Fodder Shortage as Students Protest NEET Abandonment

Latur district in Maharashtra entered October 2026 gripped by compounding crises stemming from a weak monsoon season. With the Lower Terna reservoir at just 21 per cent capacity, district officials are tightening oversight to prevent illegal water extraction, even as thousands of farmers are being forced to slash their standing sugarcane crops simply to keep livestock alive. At the same time, student anger over the NEET paper leak controversy erupted in street protests in the city.

🗳️ Collector Steps In to Protect Dwindling Water Supply

Latur Collector Bharat Bastewad on Saturday issued a directive to district officials, ordering them to tighten measures against illegal withdrawal of water from the Lower Terna irrigation project. The reservoir, which serves as one of the district's primary water sources, has fallen to just 21 per cent of its total storage capacity, a consequence of poor and erratic rainfall during the 2026 monsoon season. Bastewad's intervention reflects growing alarm at the pace of depletion in what should normally be the post-monsoon peak period for reservoir levels. Officials were instructed to step up inspections and enforcement along the canal network to identify and stop unauthorised tapping of stored water. The directive comes as Latur, historically vulnerable to drought cycles, faces yet another season of below-normal rainfall, putting both drinking water supplies and irrigation for the upcoming rabi crop under pressure. Authorities are working to ensure equitable distribution of the limited available water across the district, prioritising drinking needs before agricultural use in the most critically affected talukas. [1]

🤝 Farmers Sacrifice Sugarcane Crops to Keep Livestock Alive

In what agricultural observers describe as a desperate measure, distressed farmers across drought-hit Latur district have begun taking sickles to their still-standing sugarcane crops to use the stalks as emergency fodder for hungry cattle. Poor rainfall has dried up traditional grazing lands and depleted green fodder reserves across the region, leaving farmers with an agonising choice between harvesting their cash crop at market maturity for income or cutting it prematurely to prevent their livestock from starving. Many are choosing the animals. The Maharashtra government has officially declared drought conditions in 26 districts across the state, with Latur among the most severely affected. Farmers who cut their sugarcane early lose not only the potential price they would have received from sugar mills but also any prospect of a ratoon crop in the following season. Milk production in the area has fallen sharply as malnourished cattle produce less, dealing a secondary blow to dairy-dependent households. Local farmers' groups are calling on the government to release emergency fodder supplies and to expedite compensation payments under drought relief schemes before conditions worsen further ahead of winter. [5]

🗳️ Students Protest Against CJP Founder Over Abandoned NEET Battle

A group of students staged an angry demonstration in Latur on Friday, October 2, targeting Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke and accusing him of abandoning the campaign for justice in the NEET paper leak case. The protest took place at Gandhi Chowk under the leadership of student activist Satish Karande, with participants demanding answers about why Dipke had allegedly shifted focus away from the NEET examination controversy to other political issues. During the demonstration, protesters expressed their frustration symbolically by slapping footwear against an image of Dipke, a form of public censure common in Indian political protest culture. The students had initially rallied behind Dipke's movement after the NEET paper leak scandal, which exposed alleged irregularities in the conduct of the national medical entrance examination and sparked a nationwide controversy about examination integrity and the futures of hundreds of thousands of student aspirants. The Latur protest reflects the continuing frustration felt by students in educationally aspirational cities like Latur, which has long had a high concentration of NEET coaching institutes and produces significant numbers of medical entrance candidates every year. [9]

Sources: [1] ThePrint · [5] The New Indian Express · [9] Times Now