Sumedha Sharma

Tribune News Service

Gurgaon, April 9

As you enter the lanes of the quaint Nangal Shahpur village in Nagina block of Mewat, one sees women in purdah, bearded men and kids as young as five rushing towards a house with pitchers and drums. 

“This man has arranged for  a water tanker and the underground tank in his house is full too. We are on our way to buy the remaining  water. It’s after a week that a tanker has come to our village,” says an excited Mehtaab Khan.

With the ponds drying up, more than 200 villages in the Mewat  region have been buying water for household chores. “A tanker costs Rs 1,200 to Rs 1,500.  We pay Rs 35 for a pitcher of water, Rs 150 for a drum. We have no water to bathe, wash clothes or for our cattle,” says Jaffrundin Nambardaar, the sarpanch. 

The water mafia is raking in the moolah. Moving from one village to another, it sets the water rates at will — the greater the desperation, the higher the rates. “My husband is a farmhand. We have five children. A drum of water costs Rs 150. We have to toil hard to afford it. At times I walk several miles to buy water. The village pond has dried up.  All that remains is the slush. The sole handpump  has dried up too,” says Reshma Begum of Bhadas village. 

“They talk of an industrial hub in Mewat, but we don’t even have basic facilities. Officials say they are  helpless as there are no water  channels in the area,” says Noordin Noor, AAP district chief.

Interestingly, the Irrigation Department submitted a report to DC Mani Ram Sharma that 145 ponds in 103 villages were brimming with water.  He decided to cross-check and found that 50 per cent of these ponds were dry.