Tera Barula village (Rae Bareli): In a relief for farmers reeling under drought, the government has hiked the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for paddy and pulses.
And as the government acknowledges that half the country is affected by drought, NDTV reporter Kashish Gupta travels to one of the poorest and most backward villages in Uttar Pradesh.
She narrates her visit to the drought-affected region:
At 11 am, when we reach the village, one of its resident Hanuman walks us around the village.
"With the drought our miseries have increased. And its biggest impact has been on food. Sometimes you get food, sometimes you don't" he says.
At noon, we enter the house of Guru Prasad who is a Dalit with less than an acre of land. With 13 people in his family, just putting food on the table is a challenge.
And this year's drought means a year of malnutrition for the children.
"If we get any odd work here and there, we eat, otherwise we don't. Since there's no water in the fields, so there's no ploughing and no sowing at all," Prasad says.
At 1:30 pm the family sits down for their only real meal of the day. And there is not much -- just chapattis and one vegetable.
"Last year we used to eat pulses and all, but this year there isn't any," Guru Prasad's daughter-in-law said.
It's 3 in the evening and the time to go to field. The only way to afford those cheap vegetables is if every member of the family goes out to work.
Perhaps among the poorest in the state, these villages are a part of the constituency of Rae Bareli which has been associated with the Gandhi family for the last nearly 50 years. But they are so far away that even Sonia Gandhi has not managed to reach them, and more importantly nor has any form of development.
If drought was not enough, it's the intricate caste system prevalent in the village, which has weaved in more complications.
In the evening when we return to the village, we meet Guddi who is the wife of a Brahmin. This means her husband can't work with the lower castes. He has to find work at least a 100 km away in the city.
"We suffer the most. At times my husband finds work and makes a little money," Guddi says.
They have no land of their own and bringing up seven children has forced her into a different kind of debt trap.
"Either we borrow from someone, or eat roti and salt. Sometimes I ask others for vegetables to feed my family. It's a borrowed life" Guddi says.
The debt trap has forced her to even think about committing suicide.
At 6:30 in the evening, just before we leave, the village pradhan insists on showing us a river, which could easily have watered the fields if a check dam could be built on it. But is anyone listening?
It's an irony that can't be missed. These villages which are set by the river Sai are still reeling under drought.