Villagers close ranks over water

Villagers of Kushamura in Jujumura block of the district seem to have achieved the impossible.

Surrounded by rocky mountains and nestled in deep forest, the village is home to about 80 households, mostly tribals.

The presence of inaccessible terrains plagued the lives of these people for decades. With no natural water sources nearby, getting water for irrigation and daily consumption had always been an arduous task for them. Administrative intervention was of little help.

Things changed for good recently when a diversion-based irrigation (DBI) project was initiated by the villagers with the help of Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and a local NGO.

While the villagers worked on the project free of cost, officials of the NGO and Dorabji Trust provided the technical know-how.

The idea was to get water to the village from the neighbouring perennial Baghlat stream which flows down from the Chautara hill. Villagers agreed to the proposal of the organisations and works were started to dig up a trench from the stream to the village besides some additional trenches to lay water pipes in the village in April. It took them nearly two months to finish the work.

Now they get regular supply of water as it neither requires electricity nor machines to pump the water in the project.

“The project is like a dream come true for all the villagers as water was a perennial problem for us. Besides, the water project has unified all villagers,” said Sarojini Naik, the ward member.

Consultant of the DBI project, Sanjay Kumar Ray, said the project was possible because of the geographical condition of the village.

“Since the village is located deep inside the forest and has a spring 4 km away, we decided to use the spring water as the source of the project. The location of the source at a height of nearly 20 feet at the village has helped the project,” Ray said.

He added that there are also plans to set up similar projects in water-stressed areas like Deopali and Baghlat in the same gram panchayat. He further said through this project 30 acres can be irrigated.