Pining for a pail of water

Adilabad: With the onset of summer and the deficit rainfall received this year, the people of 32 agency mandals in the district are facing acute shortage of drinking water. With bore wells not working properly and drinking water projects remaining incomplete, people are having harrowing times. They are forced to bring water in bullock carts from their agricultural fields. In some villages, women are forced to walk several miles to fetch water for themselves from streams and lakes.

There are reports that drinking water is not available in several hamlets. The Girijans are forced to give up their jobs as agricultural labourers and travel long distances to fetch water. The scheduled tribes living in the agency areas of Utnoor, Sirpur T, Sirpur U, Indravelli, Jainoor are not getting a single drop of water from the drinking water projects.

Although it was known that the Adilabad district would face water crisis, the State government failed to chalk out an action plan to tide over the crisis. It did not take any steps to repair the bore wells. While in some of the villages, although the water tanks were completed, no efforts were made to construct pipelines. As the schemes taken up by the contractors to supply drinking water were of bad quality, they got diluted to a great extent and several villages faced acute water shortage and some of the members of the tribal community fell sick after drinking the poor quality water.

Speaking to The Hans India here on Tuesday, a farmer Mallaiah lamented that the government remained indifferent to the sufferings of the farmers and failed to take any measures to replace or repair the burnt up motors of the bore wells. However, the Superintending Engineer of the Rural Water Supply (RWS) department, Indrasen said that they were taking all the necessary steps to tide over the water crisis in the district and the government has released funds worth Rs 33 crore for the purpose. He said that drinking water would be supplied through water tanks utilising these funds. Besides, he said that bore wells would be drilled in the villages to provide water.