Drinking water in villages

[ranvirsingh]

It has been a long time and many govts have changed since then but it looks like that most of the villages in Haryana are still not getting enough clean drinking water even till date. These politicians show us big dreams but still the basic requirements are not fulfilled. If they cannot provide people with clean drinking water what else you expect!

The current situation is that majority of villages in Harayana though have water supply system managed by govt but yet they donot get sufficient water. Water is released on alternate day or even on third or fourth day.

Almost all the water supply or Jal Ghar have tubewell and they use undergound water to supply the people of area. Either this underground water is mixed with the NAHAR WATER or sometime even supplied as such without mixing.
The underground water supplied from majority of the Jal Ghars is unfit for drinking. This practice of supplying medically unfit uderground water is dangerous to health and is causing health problems in villagers.

I again was curious to know about the state of drinking water supply in your village. Hope to get feedback.

[yatinder19]

Hi
My village(Kheri Asra) is in Jhajjar District.There is pathetic situation for water.Our village has salty water.Villagers contributed and started community water supply of their own,But water level has gone down and they hardly got any water.This water is highly saline in nature and you even cant taste it.
For drinking water there is only two handpump,these are around 2-3 km away,villagers have to carry water from there.This water is also salty,But What to do!!!
Everyone is forced to drink that water...

[dndeswal]

Hi
My village(Kheri Asra) is in Jhajjar District.There is pathetic situation for water.Our village has salty water.Villagers contributed and started community water supply of their own,But water level has gone down and they hardly got any water.This water is highly saline in nature and you even cant taste it.
For drinking water there is only two handpump,these are around 2-3 km away,villagers have to carry water from there.This water is also salty,But What to do!!!
Everyone is forced to drink that water...

This is the story of every village. If we believe it, a UN study says that next world war could be on the issue of water. Our earth is called a planet of water, where 75 per cent of globe consists of water alone. And India is one of the luckiest countries where nature has provided abundant water. But oceans are of no use for those living in planes. Rivers are shrinking and the overflow of river waters with muddy substances is of little use for drinking. Traditional methods of water harvesting are being forgotten by us.

Our villages have a long tradition of using ground water for drinking purposes and there has never been a shortage of this commodity, even during famines. But now, the situation has changed. Ground water is used more for industrial and sanitation purposes than just for drinking. In Haryana’s villages, people are openly misusing the piped water which is supplied free in homes. They wash their clothes at homes, use more buckets for taking a bath – even their buffalos are given a holy bath in streets, rather than using traditional ‘johad’. This pure drinking water is also used for house construction and petty irrigation. How long nature will provide this clean ground water and how governments alone would be able to cater to all such needs?

With the spread of city culture, bathrooms and latrines are now a common utility in rural homes, where piped water is also excessively used. It is imperative that piped drinking water is used for drinking purposes only and alternative supply of raw canal water is made available for other usages. Excessive use of tubewells has pushed the ground water deeper down the earth and blind use of fertilizers over the past decades has further deteriorated the quality of water - the chemicals have gone down the earth and mixed with sweet water. Putting water meters is one alternative but currently, it will be ineffective in villages – this may have the same fate as electricity meters. The real problem is not of water shortage, but of educating the masses.
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[ranvirsingh]

Ground water is used more for industrial and sanitation purposes than just for drinking. In Haryana’s villages, people are openly misusing the piped water which is supplied free in homes. They wash their clothes at homes, use more buckets for taking a bath – even their buffalos are given a holy bath in streets, rather than using traditional ‘johad’. How long nature will provide this clean ground water and how governments alone would be able to cater to all such needs?

With the spread of city culture, bathrooms and latrines are now a common utility in rural homes, where piped water is also excessively used. It is imperative that piped drinking water is used for drinking purposes only and alternative supply of raw canal water is made available for other usages. Excessive use of tubewells has pushed the ground water deeper down the earth and blind use of fertilizers over the past decades has further deteriorated the quality of water - the chemicals have gone down the earth and mixed with sweet water. Putting water meters is one alternative but currently, it will be ineffective in villages – this may have the same fate as electricity meters. The real problem is not of water shortage, but of educating the masses.
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Mr Deswal do you want to take haryana back to 18th century? Lagta hai aap jab hindustan me the tab ek lotta pani se hi naha liya karte the.

The real problem is not shortage of water but the real problem is inefficiency on the part of ruling govt irrespective of political party. The politicians just donot care about the people of villages and they think like you, hoping that villagers will take holy bath in JOHAD where all animals pass their DUNG and URINE.


I hope you have seen few developed countries and also saw the sanitary conditions there. You are implying that letrine and bathroom culture should not be there in villages and villagers, male or female, should go to fields for their morning call. This not only looks obscene but is also an unhealthy practice which speards disease. Have you ever seen this practice in any developed country. You want people to clean themselves at the Johad after their morning call rather than using clean water. This will spread infections, like parasitic and other. I have heard stories of few passing parasite (Joon) with stools (letrine) and running from there saying saamp (snake). How many people in India have diarrhoeal problem and parasitic problems. These disease are comman in our country while rare in developed countries. That is because developed country maintain better sanitary conditions and provide clean water.

Johad water is not healthy even for animals and thats why these animals who drink johad water have higher frequecy of illness. Moreover if these animals will go to Johad they will bring infection with them and that can easily pass to human while milking these animals.

Your other theory of providing alternate non clean canal water. That means there should be two pipe lines for each village and two water supply Jal ghar. Need more man power and money, economically not desired.

And what you mean they use more buckets of water for bath. they donot take shower and water used is far less than what used is in cities. Do you think a person who is comming after working in fields, covered with dust, should just use one lotta of water to clean himself. What a hippocratic thought.

There is enough canal water to supply the villages but its the indeffirent attitude of politicians and beurocrats which is the real problem. There is enough water storage arrangments for maximum villages but functioning and maintainance is poor. Paani ki diggi mitti se bhar gayee hain, pani ki naali ret se bhar gayee hain yaa tooti huyee hain. There is no proper maintainace. The person who release water donot even use Chlorine to disinfect the water. chlorine is not supplied on regular basis. I have seen this myself during my visit last summer. For a person working in a jal ghar its easy to supply unfit tubewell water directly than filtering and chlorinating the stored water, which is a slow process and takes time.

If arrangements to supply clean water to cities with population in millions can be made, then why that is not possible for a village of few thousand people.

Yes, i agree with you that we should conserve water. And for your information water is not supplied free to villages, per month charges are there. Forget about the holy bath for buffallo, even human beings in many villages donot get suffient water for their needs.

[sidchhikara]

Who says water shortage is a big problem? I think its not because we have time and energy to celebrate Sunita Williams NASA trip. If there is a shortage, I would also expect the media to run a story on it in a loop for atleast 36 hrs!! because I think our media is highly responsible.

The government has no incentive to solve the problem because they cannot and they know that the opposition party will also incapable of solving it - so it will not make a difference to their vote.

The people in the villages think its normal to not have safe clean drinking water, so they donot make it a big issue. They are so used to the third world conditions since the last 3 generations that they think all this is business as usual.

There is also a lack of leadership on important issues - you will find lot of leaders for chutiya issues - but no one comes forward for improving the daily life of people.

But then all good things come with education and a positive attitude - there is none in villages - so the leaders are also a reflection of the peoples desires and expectations which are subdued due to lack of education and decades of torture and humiliation in the hands of the barbaric government - this torture is perpetrated everyday by the government through their apathy and unaccountability.
The government is incapable of helping the people because they are busy making a mockery of our democracy, stealing public money and getting Pratibha Patil elected as president so that she can also indulge in publicly funded luxury at the Rastrapati Bhawan while the people die of water borne diseases - what a fu**ing shame!!!!

The government can help people by getting out of their lives - or maybe the people should kick them out - both these scenarios seem highly unlikely at this point in time.

[rkumar]

Hi
My village(Kheri Asra) is in Jhajjar District.There is pathetic situation for water.Our village has salty water.Villagers contributed and started community water supply of their own,But water level has gone down and they hardly got any water.This water is highly saline in nature and you even cant taste it.
For drinking water there is only two handpump,these are around 2-3 km away,villagers have to carry water from there.This water is also salty,But What to do!!!
Everyone is forced to drink that water...

There are very simple design solar water vaporisors which can be put in every household. It won't cost more than Rs 500 for each such vaporisor. One can easily get 5-10 litres of pure water every day for drinking from such devices. There are many solutions to the problem and educated guys like you have to make sincere efforts to address this problem. British even brought boilers to Andman Nicobar islands to produce drinking water from sea water. Think out of box and there are many simple solutions to the problem.

RK^2

[dndeswal]

Mr Deswal do you want to take haryana back to 18th century? Lagta hai aap jab hindustan me the tab ek lotta pani se hi naha liya karte the.


My post has perhaps been misunderstood by Ranvir ji. There is no question of Haryana going back to 18th Century. While it is the duty of State governments to provide safe drinking water to each home, it is also the duty of masses not to misuse this facility. We cannot blame the ruling party or a certain political party for each and every evil or mismanagement. In New Delhi, the NDMC supplies two types of water in homes – the kitchen and bathroom area gets ‘filter water’ while the latrine area gets a separate supply of raw water (unfit for drinking). This raw water is also supplied to public parks for irrigating the grass and trees. In Tokyo, the charges for pipe-water are so high that people store the water released by washing machine in a big container and pour it into the domestic latrines to avoid excessive billing !

My stress was on the excessive reliance on ground-water (tubewell) which is no longer an abundant commodity. In a state like Haryana where, in most parts, ground water is not fit for drinking, supply of canal water both for drinking and other usages is the best option. Village ponds (‘johad’) should also be maintained. These should be cleaned regularly. This ancient method of storing water is relevant even today - it maintains ground-water level which is used for drinking – either through traditional well or the modern method of tubewell etc. Currently, perhaps our geographic conditions do not allow us adopt the North Carolina (US) model in toto !
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[ranvirsingh]

Deswal ji please donot think that I am blaming the current ruling party or congress alone, I made it clear from the start that every political party is responsible for this problem including the current ruling party. I am ittle busy, so hope to continue the discussion in comming days.

[ranvirsingh]

While it is the duty of State governments to provide safe drinking water to each home, it is also the duty of masses not to misuse this facility. We cannot blame the ruling party or a certain political party for each and every evil or mismanagement.

In New Delhi, the NDMC supplies two types of water in homes – the kitchen and bathroom area gets ‘filter water’ while the latrine area gets a separate supply of raw water (unfit for drinking).

. In Tokyo, the charges for pipe-water are so high that people store the water released by washing machine in a big container and pour it into the domestic latrines to avoid excessive billing !

My stress was on the excessive reliance on ground-water (tubewell) which is no longer an abundant commodity. In a state like Haryana where, in most parts, ground water is not fit for drinking, supply of canal water both for drinking and other usages is the best option. Village ponds (‘johad’) should also be maintained. These should be cleaned regularly.

Currently, perhaps our geographic conditions do not allow us adopt the North Carolina (US) model in toto !
.


Deswal ji agreed that its the duty of masses to conserve water and it should not be wasted. But water can only be wasted when its supplied in abundace. With the current supply in most of the villages, even their requirements are not fulfilled so there is no question of wastage.

In my openion one water supply line is sufficient to fullfil the needs of few thousand people. But you mentioned that there are two type of water supply lines in Delhi, though I am not aware of, then why the same is not applied to villages. There is not even a single village in Haryana where you will find two different water supply lines. That means villages are neglected totally and the politicians give the villagers a step motherly treatment. .

As far comparing Tokyo and India, compared to Tokyo we have lot more water resources and supplying clean water should not be problem. The example you gave is one of exceptions and exceptions are never good example when you compare things in general.


Now comming to Johad, at present they are used to dump dirty water. Now in villages dirty household water goes to Johad and the Johad has literally become a GANDANALA. Johad these days stink and only have dirty water. Johad water is not fit for animals even. All this is done by the govt and now govt should made alternate arrangments to provide sufficient water for animals. In this heat when buffallo cannot take a holy dip in a stinking Johad, atleast she deserves a holy bath in a street.

Along with insufficient supply, the water supplied to villages is not even chlorinated properly which is not difficult to do. That basically shows how much the beaurocrats or politicians care about villagers. They messed up the traditional system and made the Johad a gandanala and now they donot even supply sufficient water. What the poor villagers will do. They are forced to take their animals to that stinking Johad and from there diseases are spreading.


These politicians donot care about anything except their bank balance, if India is developing today that is because of private sector. The govt is unable to provide even clean and safe water for drinking.

[ranvirsingh]

Looks like something is comming up to improve the water supply in villages. Hope it will be implemented properly.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20070716/haryana.htm#2




Villages to get more drinking water
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, July 15
The Haryana Government has decided to augment drinking water supply facilities in 1000 villages of the state to the level of 55 to 70 litres per capita per day during the current financial year.
It was disclosed at the meeting of the State Sanitary Board held here recently under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
In addition, 4 lakh water connections would be provided to Scheduled Caste households under the Indira Gandhi Drinking Water Scheme. Rs 90 crore would be spent for drinking water supply to 503 villages of Mewat area under the Rajiv Gandhi Augmentation Drinking Water Project.
Besides, providing water supply facilities at 70 model villages, sports stadiums would also be taken up.
Public health minister Randeep Singh Surjewala disclosed that the state government had decided to incur a substantial amount of about Rs 693 crore to improve the water supply and sanitation system in the rural as well as urban areas of the state during the current financial year.
Out of the total expenditure, assistance to the tune of over Rs 60 crore was being provided by the Central government. A sum of Rs 467.50 crore had been allocated to rural drinking water schemes and another sum of Rs 133.56 crore had been released for urban water supply and sewerage schemes.
A sum of Rs 335.56 crore had been allocated to 1,297 ongoing rural water supply schemes under various programmes. As many as 1,277 schemes would be completed during the current financial year.
Similarly, in the urban areas, a sum of Rs 47.47 crore had been allocated to 109 ongoing water supply and sewerage schemes. Besides, a sum of Rs 75 crore had been allocated for ongoing schemes of water supply and sewerage in eight towns falling under the national capital region.
Surjewala said 713 new rural water supply schemes had been approved at a cost of Rs 203.42 crore. For the urban areas, 16 new water supply schemes, costing Rs 5.23 crore and 16 new sewerage schemes costing Rs 21.36 crore had been approved and funds to the tune of Rs 1.68 crore and Rs 9.39 crore, respectively, had been allocated.
Another Rs 2 crore would be spent on the IEC and HRD activities under the water quality monitoring and surveillance programme for ensuring safe drinking water to the

[dahiyarules]

Hi
My village(Kheri Asra) is in Jhajjar District.There is pathetic situation for water.Our village has salty water.Villagers contributed and started community water supply of their own,But water level has gone down and they hardly got any water.This water is highly saline in nature and you even cant taste it.
For drinking water there is only two handpump,these are around 2-3 km away,villagers have to carry water from there.This water is also salty,But What to do!!!
Everyone is forced to drink that water...

From what I know, in Kheri Asra a private company supplies drinking water in homes for a nominal fee. My Nan's house has had it for nearly 7 years now. It runs out to be around 30-50 dollars. dont know whats the cost as of now.

If people are unhappy with the government's alternatives, they need to explore private solutions. There is no such thing as a free lunch.