A 30-minute drive on a pothole-ridden road from Hutti Gold Mines takes you to Yerrajanthi village. From there, it is a trek of 3 km on undulating terrain that takes you to Elumadiker Doddi, a hamlet in Lingasugur taluk.
When The Hindu reached the small settlement, the temperature was hovering around 43 degrees Celsius. When asked for a glass of water, the residents led this reporter on a 1-km trek again to a shallow water source. The stink around the place made it clear that it was not potable. There, women and children were filling their pots while goats could be seen drinking directly from the same water source.
“After a small well dug at the settlement dried up three years ago, we dug another one here. It is the only source of water for all purposes. Women and children usually come early in the morning before the domestic animals muddy the water,” said Rangappa, a resident. When water for drinking and cooking is a struggle, taking bath and wearing clean clothes are luxuries here, he said, when asked how they bathe. Elumadiker Doddi, with 70 residents, is not a revenue village. While other drought-hit villages are at least on the radar of the government while providing relief work, hamlets like these get nothing.
While there is no supply of potable water through other sources in this season of drought here, the government has not provided them any civic amenities either.
The settlement surrounded by private agricultural fields has no approach road. The residents are allowed to take bullock carts through private fields to reach the settlement during summer as there are no standing crops. But during rainy season, they have to take a circuitous route to reach their village.
They carry farm inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides and sowing seeds from to their settlement on shoulder. “When some fall sick, we carry them on shoulder to Yerrajanthi from where we take them to hospitals in vehicles,” says Rangappa. The hamlet has no electricity connection either. “Some of us have mobile phones, but we come all the way to Yerrajanthi to charge them.” he says.
R. Selvamani, Assistant Commissioner (Lingasugur), pleaded ignorance. “The PDO has not brought the issue to my notice. I will send the executive engineer to the settlement and see that at least clean drinking water is provided,” he told this correspondent.
