The mighty Krishna may have flown within a touching distance of many villages in the Amaravathi region, but people for years have been deprived of drinking water.
A 150-foot deep well at Malladi village near Amaravathi, which met the drinking water requirements for many years, is a telling sign of drinking water woes that have been existing since many years.
The well, known in local parlance as “Battinavari Bavi,” located on Malladi-Tammavaram road and measures 40 feet in length and 25 feet wide with a stepped pathway of eight feet, was said to have been built by Ramaiah, a landlord of Battina (neni) family of Malladi, a village situated on the right bank of river Krishna.
The discovery made by Cultural Centre of Vijayawada and Amaravati (CCVA), as part of the campaign ‘Preserve Heritage for posterity’, throws light on the travails of people owing to scarcity of water.
Letters incised on the right side of the wall, which have been dressed with granite stone in 1863 AD, throw light on the period during which there was a severe shortage of water for both the villagers and cattle.
“The well, used to be operational during the rainy season, and was the the only one source of water supply. The well reflects the engineering skills of the people 156 years ago,” says CCVA CEO E. Sivanagi Reddy.
Though the villagers have stopped drawing water from the well long back, the CCVA has appealed to the State government to declare it as a protected monument and an engineering marvel and to develop it as a tourist spot so that the tourists frequenting Amaravathi, a temple town and a Buddhist site, can visit the well.
