By: Vijay Samyal
Jawali: While the Himachal Pradesh government may boast of having provided drinking water to each village, in fact every house, across the state, the ground reality may be bit disturbing. In fact, in absence of government water supply, in one particular case, villagers are being forced to buy water from a private seller.
Sudra is a small village of about 40 houses falling under the Mera panchayat in Fatehpur subdivision of Kangra. A quintessential Himachali village with slate roofs and greenery around, except that there is still no drinking water supply to the village, even more than six decades after India got independence. While the village is not really remote, given that it is not very difficult to reach, the irrigation and public health department could still not locate it when hand-pumps were being drilled all over the state, even next to public and private taps. The village did get a hand-pump later, but it soon got out of order and ever since no one has turned up to repair it.
So a wise villager from Sudra found an opportunity in this and got a private hand-pump installed on his land. It, of course, came as a boon for the villagers, but at a cost and they all pay a monthly rental to the entrepreneur to use his water. Villagers Narender Singh, Vir Singh, Desh Raj, Lekh Raj, Sher Singh, Sunita Devi, Rita Devi, Surinder Singh, and in fact every person this reporter met in the village narrated a story of official apathy. Officials only visit their village to carry out surveys, they all lamented. “Nothing will ever change,” they believe.
When SDO, Fatehpur, Vishal Jaswal, was contacted, he, as any government official would do, was quick to assure that the matter would be probed. And the people’s representatives – the MP and MLA – could not be contacted despite much effort.
yeah it true there has been poor deliver of water in many parts of many dist in himachal . eg in UNA dist , 10km from chintpurni there is a village named GINDPUR MALON which is also facing poor deliver of water even when handpump ( which water is not drinkable )are installed since then water spply dept has minimize water supply of water . and on complaining them they say u got hand pump in near buy ur home so use that and we all now how much water is used in a house where 4- 8 people live ( cooking ,washing ,cleaning ,use in WC ,bathing for animals etc). this is even said by the pardhan(u got hand pump in nearbyof ur house apx 70meters )of the village which is an ex school teacher of same village . on the name of water supply several pipe line has be laid but still many houses face these problem .and even if u complain to head office they dont do any thing and rather hope for bribe so they can do little help which is their duty . i think plp should talk about these problem more as himachal is a state where there is an abundant source of water and it is a shame to say that a state which supply water to north india could not fulfill need of it on state people . by writing these comments on internet i dont want to curse any 1 but just fight for our right . or even if this is not going to work , this ghee has to bee taken out by tadi ungli lol its true ,dont try to use public power otherwise those who do they can be avictim of public
You r right, there is so many villages in HP ; having difficulty in drinking water supply. I m resident of Soyera Village, near Ner Chowk (2km on leda road) having same problem.There is a single source (called baudi) for drinking water and almost 80% villagers depends upon this water.After six decades of independent of INDIA, HP Govt want to make policies to plan and implement to compete the drinking water in every house for basic need.
We r with HP Govt to strengthen him by Tan- Man-dhan.
Comments are closed.