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LATUR, INDIA - APRIL 11: Dried and cracked storage area of the Manjara Dam Project, Dhanegaon which comes under Beed and Usmanabad and supplies 9 nearby regions, from where Latur gets its water supply on April 11, 2016 in Latur, India. Consecutive drought years resulted in acute water scarcity and the agrarian crisis and have its epicentre in three districts of the Marathwada region Latur, Osmanabad and Beed. (Photo by Anshuman Poyrekar/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)
Barely two days after a train carrying five lakh litres of water reached Latur, close to 10,000 litres of water, the weekly ration of water per family in the drought-hit district, was wasted to clean up a helipad for the arrival of a state minister on Friday, according to a news report.
Maharashtra Agriculture Minister Eknath Khadse chose to go by helicopter when he could have easily gone by road to Belkund, hardly 40 minutes away from Latur city.
Khadse, who was the one to announce on April 5 the decision to supply water to Latur by train to tackle the water scarcity there, however denied the accusation of wasting 10,000 litres of water saying the issue was being 'blown out of proportion'.
About 15 lakh litres of water sourced from the Krishna river has already been delivered to Latur by train over three trips since April 11.
The minister’s visit on Friday was to review the water unloading and distribution facilities.
A 12-year-old school student Sarfaraz Khan of Mumbai's Rizvi Springfield School poses beside a scoreboard depicting his record breaking 439 score against Indian Education Society (Kandivli) in the Harris Shield Inter-school cricket tournament held in Mumbai on November 3, 2009. Sarfaraz hit 56 boundaries and 12 sixes during his 421-ball innings to break the record set by R Nagdev who had scored 427 not out in 1963-64. (credit:Times Content)
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Sarfaraz Khan, from the Rizvi Springfield School poses next to the scoreboard after scoring 439 runs during the inter-school Harris Shield Tournament in Mumbai, India, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009. The previous highest score in the 113-year-old tournament was by Ramesh Nagdev who scored 427 in the year 1963-64. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Sarfaraz Khan of Royal Challengers Banglore during match 29 of the Pepsi IPL 2015 (Indian Premier League) between The Royal Challengers Bangalore and The Rajasthan Royals held at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, India on the 29th April 2015. (credit:Royal Challengers Bangalore/Flickr)
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Sarfaraz Khan of Royal Challengers Banglore during match 29 of the Pepsi IPL 2015 (Indian Premier League) between The Royal Challengers Bangalore and The Rajasthan Royals held at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, India on the 29th April 2015. (credit:Royal Challengers Bangalore/Flickr)
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David Wiese and Sarfaraz Khan of Royal Challengers Banglore during match 29 of the Pepsi IPL 2015 (Indian Premier League) between The Royal Challengers Bangalore and The Rajasthan Royals held at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, India on the 29th April 2015. (credit:Royal Challengers Bangalore/Flickr)
-- This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which
closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions
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