Lakshmi Devi’s daily life revolves around her search for drinking water.
A mother of three, the 40-year-old walks at least 1.5 km from Baba Ramdev Gali in Bhatti mines to Aalu Mod every day, because the borewells dug by the Delhi government around her don’t work.
Bhatti mines has around 4,500 households, as reported by a not-for-profit working in the area. Three months after the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) dug three new borewells to address the water crisis in the south Delhi locality, many residents complained that the borewells remain faulty.
Muddy water is being pumped up, making it unfit for any purpose to the residents. As a result, women are forced to abandon chores and paid work to fetch water.
Like Ms. Devi, Seema Tavar, 35, a construction worker, said, “Both work and water are essentials of life. However, when we have to choose between the two — work that pays for everything, including the water, or water at the cost of missing wages — it becomes difficult.”
Most residents of Sanjay Colony in the area also claimed that despite the Delhi government’s promises of supplying water tankers in places without provisions for water pipelines, the DJB’s water tankers do not come despite several phone calls. The people are dependent on private tankers, each of which charges around ₹500 a day to reach the area.
Dependent on tankers
“Sometimes, when the tankers do arrive, they are mostly taken by those who are politically connected,” says Amarjeet Kaur, 40. She said the residents have written letters to the DJB asking for the older borewells, that became defective three years ago, to be repaired. However, their efforts reaped no results. Sewage water had seeped into these pipelines.
In 2022, a quality test was commissioned by an NGO working in Bhatti mines, which revealed that the water supplied to the residents from the DJB’s few functional old borewells is unfit for consumption.
Faecal content in water
The test conducted by Vardan Group, which works in the field of environmental health safety management, found that the water had faecal content.
Meanwhile, the women complain that much of their workload has increased because of the scarcity of water in the area. They often walk 3-5 km in search of water. Young women said that the water spots have become places of harassment by some men.
The DJB vice-chairperson and the Delhi government spokesperson did not respond to queries.
