Atmakur village in Telangana has a population of 5000 with 1000 household and this village now buys Rs 2.4 lakh for drinking water as the 24 borewells for public use and many of them are on brink of drying up.
Prabhu Singh, the residents of the village buys the 20-litre bottle of water for drinking and all other villagers are buying drinking water since the borewell which used to quench their thrust are on the verge of drying up.
?¡°Even the borewell dug on the bund of the tank in the village entrance had already dried up and this speaks about the gravity of the drinking water problem,¡± ?Singh told The Hindu adding that many agriculture borewells have also dried up.
?¡°Every day we are getting only one or two pots of water as our house is located far from the water connection point. Being old what I can do except compromise with the available water,¡± asked Dhanampally Bakkaiah, a resident of the village.
The scarcity of the drinking water can be measured that the village buys 400 cans of water every day.
?¡°There is a grave drinking water problem in the village and we are not getting Mission Bhagiratha water yet. Though there are 24 borewells in the village many of them have already dried up and some are yielding very little water. Not everyone is in a position to purchase water. Every day, about 400 water bubble top cans are being sold in the village,¡± admitted a local public representative on condition of anonymity.
?A bubble top can which costs Rs 20 and 400 bottles of water cost around Rs 8,000 per day. This would come to Rs 2.4 lakh per month.
(With The Hindu inputs)
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