May 7, 2008
Calcutta Telegraph - Calcutta, India
In arid, summer-scorched Bundelkhand, people have started looting water.
Photo: An electricity office in Gurgaon ransacked on Tuesday by villagers protesting against power cuts. (PTI)
Rainless skies and soaring mercury have triggered water riots in districts like Mahoba and Banda, where cracked lands and cattle carcasses on the roadside have been a common sight for some time now.
Last night, two tankers ferrying “rationed” water were looted in Mahoba and the driver of one of the vehicles was badly beaten up by residents of the Kasbathai area of the district. So brutal was the assault that the 40-year-old driver, Suresh Kumar, had to be hospitalised.
The district administration, which has fixed the quantity and hour of supply in all blocks, had hired 28 tankers. But now, no tanker owner is working in protest against the assault.
“Since this morning, water tanker owners have gone on strike and this has caused more tension in the area,” said Mahoba district magistrate Vijay Biswas Panth.
“Adequate security arrangements are being made to persuade the tanker owners to resume supply of water.”
An officer at Mahoba’s Jal Nigam, which is responsible for water supply in the district, said the quantity of water “depends on the population” of a village.
“We are telling them the water is meant for drinking. But some villagers who have powerful leaders loot the tankers, get the entire water in the tankers to their area and let the villagers wash clothes and bathe. We don’t have enough water to let people take a bath.”
On May 5, some residents of Jetpur block in the district had looted another tanker. Over 8,000 others had to make do with water from a few hand pumps.
“In the entire Jetpur block, only six out of 80 hand pumps are working. Local ponds have long gone dry. People are digging pits in search of water,” Nirbhay Singh, a member of a village council, told the district administration.
In Banda, people gheraoed the sub-divisional magistrate on May 4 night. Some 40-odd villagers held him hostage in Baberu after demonstrating in front of the Jal Nigam office.
Juhair Bin Sagir, the sub-divisional magistrate, said more tanks were being requisitioned in villages and they would be filled with water supplied by tankers. But there was not just enough water to supply to every village, he added.
Banda district police chief Ashutosh Kumar said pickets had been posted near reservoirs to stop the loot.
Officials said about 80 per cent of hand pumps in the district don’t work as the water table has gone down in the region drastically.
In as many as 40 blocks in Bundelkhand, in the grip of a drought for the past five years, the ground water level is critical, they added. In 25 of these blocks, it has gone down 180 to 250 metres from the ground level, said R.K. Yadav, a senior engineer with the state Jal Nigam department.
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