Rajasthan
Dry Taps: Village nearest to Bisalpur Dam is flush with distress over dry taps | Jaipur News
The residents of Deoli Rajmahal village in Deoli tehsil of Tonk district receive tap water once every 3-4 days and say it matters little that their village is the closest to Bisalpur Dam. They, however, feel grateful that a sequence of the Aravali hills stands between the village and the dam. Or else Deoli Rajmahal would have been the 24th village to be submerged under the dam.
“It is the darkness under the lamp,” said Sushila Soyal, a middle-aged woman who came to the village after her marriage 15 years ago. “I cannot recall a single day when I was not stressed because of water shortage, except during the monsoon. This village, like many others nearby, does not have functioning handpumps,” she added.
The villagers said tap under a Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) project supplies water to the area after every 2-3 days. The power personnel switch off electricity 30 minutes after the water supply starts, preventing residents from running boosters to fill tanks on the first or second floors of their houses, they said.
During the summer, households pool money to hire private water tankers. The village women must stay at their homes to fill water every third day, even if that means missing out on family and social functions.
The village has a population of 10,000 people, mostly farmers who have stopped cultivating water-intensive crops like wheat due to insufficient irrigation water.
The residents note with distress that millions of cubic meters of water lying in their backyard goes to Ajmer and Jaipur cities but leaves them and their farmland thirsty. “I remember how in 1982, the then CM Shiv Charan Mathur came inaugurated Bisalpur Dam and said our village will be rich with crops and there will be a sea at our doorstep. Mathur said that the first right on the dam’s water would be ours and that our people would be engaged in its security, too. CMs from Mathur to Gehlot have betrayed us,” said Ugta Ram, an elderly resident.
As the assembly polls draw close, villagers are ready to question candidates of Deoli-Uniara constituency over absence of enough water supply in the area and direct water connections to the village, which is just 3.5 km away from the dam. In 2018, sitting Congress MLA Harish Meena promised to build a direct link from the dam to nearby villages, including Deoli Rajmahal.
“The department allocated water to the village based on the population as per the 2001 census, but the populatiton has grown many times. I have written to the MLA more than 100 times but got no reply. What can we do?” asked Kishan Gopal, the sarpanch of Rajmahal.
Meena is once again the Congress candidate pitted against BJP’s Vijay Bainsla.
“It is the darkness under the lamp,” said Sushila Soyal, a middle-aged woman who came to the village after her marriage 15 years ago. “I cannot recall a single day when I was not stressed because of water shortage, except during the monsoon. This village, like many others nearby, does not have functioning handpumps,” she added.
The villagers said tap under a Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) project supplies water to the area after every 2-3 days. The power personnel switch off electricity 30 minutes after the water supply starts, preventing residents from running boosters to fill tanks on the first or second floors of their houses, they said.
During the summer, households pool money to hire private water tankers. The village women must stay at their homes to fill water every third day, even if that means missing out on family and social functions.
The village has a population of 10,000 people, mostly farmers who have stopped cultivating water-intensive crops like wheat due to insufficient irrigation water.
The residents note with distress that millions of cubic meters of water lying in their backyard goes to Ajmer and Jaipur cities but leaves them and their farmland thirsty. “I remember how in 1982, the then CM Shiv Charan Mathur came inaugurated Bisalpur Dam and said our village will be rich with crops and there will be a sea at our doorstep. Mathur said that the first right on the dam’s water would be ours and that our people would be engaged in its security, too. CMs from Mathur to Gehlot have betrayed us,” said Ugta Ram, an elderly resident.
As the assembly polls draw close, villagers are ready to question candidates of Deoli-Uniara constituency over absence of enough water supply in the area and direct water connections to the village, which is just 3.5 km away from the dam. In 2018, sitting Congress MLA Harish Meena promised to build a direct link from the dam to nearby villages, including Deoli Rajmahal.
“The department allocated water to the village based on the population as per the 2001 census, but the populatiton has grown many times. I have written to the MLA more than 100 times but got no reply. What can we do?” asked Kishan Gopal, the sarpanch of Rajmahal.
Meena is once again the Congress candidate pitted against BJP’s Vijay Bainsla.
