Each morning, 17-year-old Ramati Mangla sets off barefoot with a steel pot in hand, walking several kilometres to fetch water from a distant spring in India’s Maharashtra state.

By the time she returns, school has already started.

“I have kept my books,” she said. “But what if I never get a chance to go back?”

In the drought-hit villages of Maharashtra’s Nashik and Nandurbar districts, wells are drying up and rainfall has become increasingly erratic — forcing families to adapt to harsher living conditions.

As men migrate to nearby cities in search of work, girls like Mangla are left to take on the responsibility of collecting water.

It’s a chore that can take hours each day and leaves little time for school.

Local officials estimate that nearly two million people in these regions fac

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