Kappaladoddi village near Machilipatnam, where nearly 70% of the families are weavers, is back in focus. Not for weavers’ suicide as reported till 2013, but for people and the government getting their priorities wrong.
The village of 890 dwellings “boasts of” 24x7 liquor supply, but access to safe drinking water remains elusive. “Liquor is literally available at our doorstep irrespective of the season. A majority of the streets have liquor shops. Our pathetic state is that we are forced to search for drinking water,” weavers Perisetti Babu Rao and Perisetti Gurumurthy told The Hindu .
Muddy water
The village with a population of 3,200 has 11 belt (unlicensed) shops against the Excise Department’s rule of one licensed liquor shop for a population of 5,000.
Those who cannot afford to buy a 20-litre bottle at ₹15 will have to travel to Akulamannadu, Pedana and nearby villages, three kilometres away, for water.
“The Panchayat supplies water drawn from the Ramaraju canal twice or thrice a week in summer. But we do not consume it as the water is muddy,” said B. Ramu, a physically challenged person.
The canal, which too is three kilometres from the village, is the only surface water source for drinking for the village. It normally goes dry by March end.
Families like that of Mr. Gurumurthy get a pot of water from one of the three agriculture wells located on the outskirts of the village where the quality of water is somewhat good.
The groundwater is not potable as it is found to have a high level of salinity and fluoride. The fluoride content is as high as 2 mg per litre as against the permissible 0.6 mg per litre, according to an official report.
Taking advantage of the scarcity, some entrepreneurs from the neighbouring Aakulamannadu village have dug up a borewell, solely to sell water to the villagers of Kappaladoddi.
