Nagpur: Yet another village in Yavatmal district is desperately trying to draw attention to its severe water crisis. Residents of Rampur Nagar, near Pusad town, have spread messages on social media, appealing for the village to be adopted by some leader. The appeal by Rampur highlights a larger crisis around Pusad, where over 40 villages have faced a grim crisis every summer for decades, say the locals.
The message also includes pictures of the parched landscape and people carrying drums of water in bullock carts. It’s been 75 years of independence, and there is no permanent solution to the water crisis, it says. A plan to bring tap water to each home remains stuck as funds have dried up, say officials from the district administration. As many as 1,500 projects under the Jal Jeevan Mission have been sanctioned. However, most of the work has been held up due to a lack of funds, the source said.
Even Rampur has an incomplete pipe network. It’s March, and each day a tanker reaches Rampur Nagar from Pusad and empties around 25,000 litres into a dry well. The villagers quickly fill up their share of water. The resourceful load drums on bullock carts, some take it on bikes, while others simply walk down for a kilometre.
“All the wells and ponds have dried up, and there is no other source but to depend on the tankers. Last year, some of the villages attached pumps to the well. This left others dry. Now, to ensure equitable distribution, each one has to come to the well and draw the water manually,” said sarpanch Anil Chavan.
It’s not Rampur alone that faces the water crisis during summers. Earlier this month, a group of sarpanches staged protests dressed in sarees with painted faces resembling Bollywood character Pushpa, as a gesture of protest against water shortage. Before that, a group of villagers paraded their sarpanch with a leaflet reading ‘dishonest’ stuck on his shirt. On reaching the zilla parishad office, the villagers were apologetic when they came to know that the water works under the Jal Jeevan Mission had stopped because of a lack of funds from the govt.
Manish Jadhav, an activist of Swabhiman Shetkari, said each year women have to walk 2-3 kilometres to fetch water. Shyam Rathod, a social activist from Pusad, said there are over 40 villages in the area where the water crisis strikes each summer. These are at an elevation called Mal Pathar in the local jargon. The soil is of inferior quality, and so the groundwater is low. Projects under the Jal Jeevan Mission only remain on paper, he said.
The message also includes pictures of the parched landscape and people carrying drums of water in bullock carts. It’s been 75 years of independence, and there is no permanent solution to the water crisis, it says. A plan to bring tap water to each home remains stuck as funds have dried up, say officials from the district administration. As many as 1,500 projects under the Jal Jeevan Mission have been sanctioned. However, most of the work has been held up due to a lack of funds, the source said.
Even Rampur has an incomplete pipe network. It’s March, and each day a tanker reaches Rampur Nagar from Pusad and empties around 25,000 litres into a dry well. The villagers quickly fill up their share of water. The resourceful load drums on bullock carts, some take it on bikes, while others simply walk down for a kilometre.
“All the wells and ponds have dried up, and there is no other source but to depend on the tankers. Last year, some of the villages attached pumps to the well. This left others dry. Now, to ensure equitable distribution, each one has to come to the well and draw the water manually,” said sarpanch Anil Chavan.
It’s not Rampur alone that faces the water crisis during summers. Earlier this month, a group of sarpanches staged protests dressed in sarees with painted faces resembling Bollywood character Pushpa, as a gesture of protest against water shortage. Before that, a group of villagers paraded their sarpanch with a leaflet reading ‘dishonest’ stuck on his shirt. On reaching the zilla parishad office, the villagers were apologetic when they came to know that the water works under the Jal Jeevan Mission had stopped because of a lack of funds from the govt.
Manish Jadhav, an activist of Swabhiman Shetkari, said each year women have to walk 2-3 kilometres to fetch water. Shyam Rathod, a social activist from Pusad, said there are over 40 villages in the area where the water crisis strikes each summer. These are at an elevation called Mal Pathar in the local jargon. The soil is of inferior quality, and so the groundwater is low. Projects under the Jal Jeevan Mission only remain on paper, he said.
