Kusuma’s struggle starts at 4 am. She wakes up early to ensure her family can get water from the tanker which comes regularly in the Sarhat village of Manikpur in Chitrakut. “I get up so early and place the bucket and other utensils in line but there is no guarantee that I will get water,” she said.
“Ours is a forgotten village where we live with scarcity of water for decades. We do not have enough water to drink. Washing hands regularly with water is a luxury which we cannot afford,” she told this reporter on the telephone.
As the Unlock 1.0 began early this week with Government advocating people to maintain safe distance and asking them to wash hands regularly to beat Covid-19, the villagers in Bundelkhand have resigned to their fates. Their struggle for water begins in the morning and ends in the evening with fetching water to wash, cook and drink on a daily basis and cannot think of wasting water to wash hands every two hours, as advocated by experts and doctors.
The rugged Bundelkhand is known for water crisis and the summer months are the worst, with groundwater levels acutely low. Sarhat is one of the villages where water scarcity is routine, even during winters. The tankers are only source of water to these parched villages and the day they don’t roll in the villagers have to walk long distances hunting for water.
Deaths of people as well as animals like cattle due to scarcity of water are rampant too.
“Sometimes we have to drink water from filthy ponds. It’s revolting. But we have no option,” she said.
Sarhat is among a dozen such as Amchur Nerwa, Theka. Bheda, Umari and Thikari in Manikpur block where tanker is the only lifeline, providing water to around 90 families - comprising around 550 people.
Scarcity of water has brought a social stigma, too. Like in Gopipur village in Chitrakoot district where number of unmarried youth is rising every passing day because people have stopped giving their daughters in this village.
“No one wants their daughter married to someone in Gopipur because it is one of the most water scare village in parched Bundelkhand,” Dinesh Kumar, a gram sabha member said.
He said many youths have given up any hope of getting married. “There are men who got marriage proposals not once but five to six times because of their status but in the last minute marriage is cancelled because no one wants that their daughter should live in a village where there is no water,” he said.
Gopal Bhai, of Akhile Bharatiya Samaj Sewa Sansthan (ABSSS) in Chitrakut said giving directives about hand washing is one thing but actually facing the ground reality is different. “Can you think of a family who gets a pitcher of water after long struggle will use a fraction of it to wash hands so as to protect himself from corona,” he said.
Raja Bhaiya of Vidya Dham Samiti in Banda said the gravity of the situation can be gauged that many a time people do not take a bath for many weeks despite scorching summer.
People living in Bundelkhand and Vindhya regions in Uttar Pradesh are among the most water-scarce areas in the country. The basic reason is the 70 per cent of the blocks in Bundelkhand are in dark zone - meaning ground water level is very low.
“There can be many reasons for it. This could be excessive extraction of water but the biggest reason for water scarcity in this area is changing pattern in rainfall due to climate change,” Farrukh Rahman Khan, Regional Manager (North) WaterAid said.
To buttress his point he said normal rainfall in the region is 947 mm but from 2011 to 2019 just 732.47 mm rainfall has been recorded. “This changing pattern has affected ground water recharge and in turn it has led to scarcity,” he said.
