It looks like everybody does really love a good drought. As many as 19 new sugar factories have been planned in Solapur district, according to Sakhar Diary 2013, brought out by the Maharashtra sugar commissionerate.

The diary, which gives the locations and capacities of these factories, states that the sugar commissioner's office has already issued 'distance certificates' to the sugar mills — a clear indication that clearances are at an advanced stage.

The chronically drought-hit Solapur has 28 sugar factories — the largest in Maharashtra. The new factories, many of which are owned by regional political heavyweights, will add a crushing capacity of 85.52lakh tonne of water-guzzling sugarcane. Five of these, two of which are owned by politicians, have been planned in Madha, part of the Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar's constituency. It already has three such factories.

To grow 85.52lakh tonne of sugarcane, an additional 1,05,580 hectare (ha) of land will have to be cultivated. This, in turn, will require 1,782 million cubic metre (MCM) more water for irrigation.

And the projection doesn't even include the 12.83MCM of water the new sugar factories will require.

The big picture is chilling. With the new factories, 2.685lakh ha of land in Solapur will be used solely for cane cultivation. The annual water consumption by fields and factories will go up to over 7,400MCM. This is way above the quantity of water allocated for the district — 4,188MCM — as per a report of the Maharashtra Water and Irrigation Commission (MWIC), set up by the state government in 1995.

In a drought year often dubbed “worse than the 1972 drought”, Solapur added four new sugar factories to its empire.

“Since the MWIC's assessment includes all possible planned water schemes, there's no possibility for Solapur to get more water,” points out Parineeta Dandekar of the South Asia Network for Dams, Rivers and People, a network of organisations and individuals working on issues of the water sector.

So, where will Solapur source the extra water from? “By taking it from other regions or by accelerating the exhaustion of groundwater,” explains Dandekar.

As per the latest sugar crushing figures as on April 11, 126.25lakh tonne of cane were crushed in Solapur district alone during 2012-13. The district accounted for 18.25% — again the highest — of cane crushed in the state in the same period.

Land under sugarcane cultivation almost doubled in the district in the 1970s and again in the 1980s. During 2005-06 and 2011-12, it seems to have gone up by over 160%. This is the highest growth phase for sugarcane. It'll only continue with the new sugar factories.

Activists are appalled by such planned development. “The government is running more than 200 cattle camps (most in the state) in the district given the dire drought situation and 141 villages are entirely dependent on tankers for drinking water and yet, it is planning yet more sugar factories,” scoffs Dandekar