Waterworks ‘defunct’ for years, villagers left high and dry in Charkhi Dadri

Deepender Deswal
Tribune News Service
Hisar, May 11

Residents of the Makrana village in Charkhi Dadri district have been waiting to get water supply in their village for last 25 years. Though the waterworks was constructed in 1995-1996, not a drop of water reached the water tanks there. The village panchayat had put in place an alternative arrangement by fetching water supply from Bhana village, 14 km from the village, which is inadequate to fulfill the needs of the entire village. Resultantly, the villagers are forced to fetch water from Dadri town, about 12 km away from the village or have to purchase it for Rs 10 per pitcher from private suppliers.

The villagers said groundwater there was saline and unfit for human consumption. “The Public Health Department had constructed new infrastructure by building to supply water to the village, which was set to get raw water from Satnali feeder, but the water pipes could not be laid to fetch water from the feeder to the waterworks,” said Rajesh Kumar, a villager.

Suresh Kumar, husband of the village sarpanch Sarita, said the village had been raising the issue for over two decades. “The panchayat had made arrangements to get water supply by laying pipe line to Bhana village, but this system was not able to fulfil the needs and the maintenance of the long stretch of pipeline was also a problem,” said Kumar.

Villagers said after persistent efforts, the state government resumed work for laying pipeline to connect waterworks to the Satnali feeder water channel in 2014. “But the work again got hampered due to theft of the pipelines. Now, number of villagers opt to purchase RO water from a private supplier at a cost of Rs 10 per pitcher, while some others fetch water from Dadri town,” said Kumar.

Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) junior engineer (JE) Samunder Singh said 80 per cent of the work to lay water pipeline to connect the waterworks to Satnali feeder was complete. “The work has to be stopped due to the lockdown as the labour was not available. The raw water supply from Satnali feeder is meant for five villages, including Makrana, Datauli, Chillar, Changrod and Adampur,” the JE said.