In Assam's Karimganj, Residents Are Forced To Source Drinking Water From Puddles
Residents across various villages in Assam's Karimganj district cannot remember a time when they drank clean, fresh water. For the longest time, villagers from Oilamcherra, Ping Cherra, Gopalpur, Belala and Mirjanagar, to name a few villages, h
Residents across various villages in Assam's Karimganj district cannot remember a time when they drank clean, fresh water. For the longest time, villagers from Oilamcherra, Ping Cherra, Gopalpur, Belala and Mirjanagar, to name a few villages, have been dependent on rivulets and puddles of muddy water for daily use.
Inevitably, generations of families across these villages have been affected by water-borne diseases like dysentery, cholera, diarrhoea, and more. There are very few villagers who have hope that the situation will change sometime in the near future.
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Farook Ahmed, 37, is a resident of Taltola, a village around 70 km from one of Assam¡¯s bigger towns, Silchar. Taltola comprises about 8,000 - 9,000 residents, who barely make a living as farmers and daily wage workers. Ahmed says, ¡°We don¡¯t have any option but to collect water from ponds, puddles or tube wells in neighbouring villages¡±.
¡°We have raised the issue with the MLA from South Karimganj, Aziz Ahmed Khan, and other political leaders a number of times, but no steps were taken to resolve the drinking water crisis in our villages,¡± he adds.
Few can afford mineral water
Liyakat Hussain, president of Model NGO (a popular local organisation), and its secretary Faruque Ahmed, have said that a large number of villages, including Alamkhani, Farampasha and Ishwarsree in South constituency of Karminganj, have been deprived of clean drinking water for years.
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¡°It really seems a joke that we have to suffer lack of basic facilities like clean drinking water in this era of technological advancements,¡± said Dipon Namasudra, 38, from Mrijanagar, a village comprising only about 2,000 residents, 78 km from Silchar. ¡°We continue to suffer not just from scarcity of drinking water, but we are also without electricity as well,¡± he adds
Enam Uddin, the joint-secretary of Model NGO, said diseases like diarrhoea, stomach-disorder are quite common in villages suffering from the water crisis. ¡°Year after year, people have been living like this. They have apparently acclimatised with the situation,¡± he said.
Residents who can afford it, manage to arrange mineral water for infants, while some get water of lesser quality from nearby villages (wherever available). The percentage of people who can afford mineral water is very less. Those who are unable to buy mineral water or arrange water from other places give their children the same water they drink, he said, adding, ¡°Basically, people have become hopeless of the situation and do not complain anymore. If anything major (illness through a disease) happens, they go to the nearest health centre/hospital for treatment¡±.
Salikur Rahman, a resident of Nilambazar in Karimganj district, said the situation somewhat gets better during the rainy season, from April to June, as people get the chance to store rainwater, a better alternative to water from ponds and puddles. However, the situation gets worse after the monsoon arrives in its prime form.
Several villagers in this district have similar stories to tell
Pratap Das, 42, from Asaighat village says, ¡°Although we have approached many political leaders and raised the issue of lack of drinking water supply, our pleas have remained unheard¡±.
Biplob Baidya, from Oilamcherra, echoed what Das said about the hardships villagers face because of the water crisis. ¡°There is no water supply plant near the village and we have to collect water from impure sources,¡± he says.
¡°We don¡¯t think our condition is going to change. We don¡¯t even hope anymore.¡± This is a sentiment repeated across all neighbouring villages of the Patharkandi district.
Aziz Ahmed Khan, the MLA from South Karimganj, has made promises. He has stated that he would soon take up the matter with Assam PHE minister, Rihon Daimari, and urge him to take the necessary steps to solve the problem of water scarcity in the villages under his constituency. He accepted that the water crisis has been prevalent many villages and added that viable initiatives to resolve this problem would be taken soon.
50% water supply plants in district defunct
Government officials like Tirtha Purkayastha, assistant engineer at the PHE Department, Karimganj sub-division, reiterates the usual lack of funds as the main reason behind scarcity of water within the district. Krishnendu Paul, BJP legislator from Patharkandi, Karimganj, told Indiatimes that work to set up water supply plants in the district will be initiated this year and more will come up next year.
¡°I am aware of the acute drinking water crisis and have brought the matter to the attention of the Assam PHE Minister, Rihon Daimari. He has assured necessary steps to solve the problem,¡± Purkayastha said.
Siddhanta Paul, an executive engineer at the PHE department in Karimganj, said the government had allocated an amount of Rs 36 lakh for each constituency in 2017 for repair/revival of the district¡¯s water supply plants.
Many scams related to water supply schemes took place during the Congress rule, owing to which people are suffering till today, Paul alleged. ¡°I have asked the minister for a high-level probe into these scams.¡±
Karimganj district has five constituencies - Karimganj South, Karimganj North, Patharkandi, Ratabari and Badarpur.
Paul said it was instructed by the government that the department concerned (PHE department) should contact the respective legislators of the constituencies and accordingly take steps for the work. The process started in January 2018, however, in many areas the work halted because of various issues.
¡°There are more than 300 water supply plants in the district and nearly 140 are non-functional, while many other plants do not function smoothly,¡± he said.
He shared that the government did not earmark any funds for maintenance of water supply plants in the past, which resulted in the defunct condition of many. ¡°Most of the water supply plants were set up several years ago and they have been in a dilapidated state due to lack of maintenance,¡± Paul added.
He clarified that all the villages in the district do not have water supply plants and it is not possible to make water available to those due to long distance issues. ¡°It can be seen whether options for localised reservoirs can be arranged in/near the villages which are facing this problem,¡± he said.
¡°Scarcity of clean drinking water has been a perennial problem not just in Karimganj district, but in the entire state,¡± Kamalakhya Dey Purkayastha, a Congress legislator from North Karimganj, says. ¡°The issue has been raised many times in the Assembly, but remains unattended.¡±
Taking a pot-shot at the BJP government, he said they speak of ¡®acche din¡¯, while people don¡¯t receive pure drinking water.
¡°Nearly 80% of the water supply plants in Karimganj district have been lying defunct for years.¡± The legislator promises that he will raise the issue in the Assembly again so that defunct water supply plants are revived and new plants are set up wherever needed.
Karimganj Additional Deputy Commissioner, Barunya Das, said a meeting of the district development committee was held in July, where the water crisis due to non-functioning water supply plants was discussed. He said verification would be done after mid-August, 2018, to assess how many water supply plants were non-functional and action would be taken to revive them. He was hopeful that some areas would start getting clean water in the coming months.
Sources said more than 600 villages across the district face this problem of impure drinking water.
Swapnaneel Bhattacharjee is a Silchar-based freelance writer.
This is the fifth story in the indiatimes water series.
