Most households in Madhi village in Nuh’s Nagina tehsil have underground reservoirs, locally known as kundas , to meet their daily need of water for drinking, washing and cooking as well as for their cattle.
Having a population of around 3,000, the village is at a distance of around 100 km from the national Capital.
“Till a decade ago, the women and men of the village used to fetch drinking water on foot or on bicycles from a well in the neighbouring village. But it gradually dried up. These kundas have come up across the village over the past few years. They are replenished with water procured through private tankers, costing ₹800-₹1,000 per tanker. The water usually lasts for 10-15 days,” said Mohammad Majlis, a villager.
Majlis, an operation theatre technician at Gurugram’s Medanta Hospital, said a monthly expenditure of around ₹2,000 on drinking water was “too much” for the locals since most of them were poor farmers or those engaged in jobs with monthly incomes of ₹10,000-₹12,000.
Saline groundwater
The groundwater in this part of the district is saline, making it unfit for drinking and its level too has gone down. The lone pond in the village also dries up every summer, adding to the woes of the villagers.
Irshad, another villager, said the natural course of rainwater to the pond was hindered by the construction of a school, reducing the amount of water reaching the pond and causing it to dry up every six months.
“The cattle suffer the most when the pond dries up. Since we cannot afford water to drink and cook, bathing the cattle becomes almost impossible,” he added.
Erratic water supply
Though the authorities laid water pipelines to the village several years ago, the villagers complained that the supply was “erratic”. “We do not get water for weeks together. Sometimes there is no water for months. The situation is more or less the same all through the year. But there is slight relief when the pond is replenished during monsoon,” said Shamim Ahmed, a local.
A similar situation prevails in more than two dozen villages in Nagina tehsil. The ponds dry up every summer and the locals, heavily dependent on private tankers for their everyday water needs, are forced to dig up kundas to store water.
But there are people like Jamil, running a cigarette kiosk on the Nuh-Alwar highway in Madhi, who cannot even afford a “kunda” whose construction costs around ₹ 30,000-40,000.
Parched land: (Left) A dried pond at Madhi village; residents collect drinking water from a cemented water tank in Nuh, Haryana.
He is at the mercy of his fellow villagers to meet his family’s daily need for water and usually “begs” for it. “Sometimes I contribute to the payment made to the water tanker by those who have a kunda ,” said Jamil.
Ganduri resident Mohhamad Akil complained that water stored for too long in kundas sometimes caused skin ailments and other illnesses, but the villagers have little choice.
“More than half of Nuh district faces water crisis with Nagina tehsil being the worst affected. The water supply to Nagina is erratic and the groundwater level has gone down. Almost all ponds across the district dry up during the summer. Plans for their revival remain mostly on paper,” said social activist Saleem Khan.
Brisk tanker business
With the authorities failing to meet the drinking water needs of the people of the district, private water tanker owners do brisk business all through the year, especially in the summer.
Owners of agricultural land at the foothills of the Aravalis have drilled borewells and sell groundwater to private tanker owners, who in turn supply it to the villages across the district.
Amjad, one such landowner, told The Hindu that he replenished 18-20 tankers every day during the summer, but the number decreased to almost half during the winter.
“We have laid a pipeline from our land in Khoiri village to Rajaka Pul and supply water to private tankers. There are around a dozen such points across the district,” claimed Amjad.
Private tanker owner Saad, who takes water from Amjad at Rajaka Pul point, claimed that he made around ₹20,000 per month by supplying water to villages like Badkali, Kreda, Kithurpuri, Mandi, Notki and Khwajlika.
The estimated demand for private tankers in the district is around 100-125 per day, mostly in the Nagina tehsil. The tankers also supply water to Ferozepur Jhirka, Punhana, Tauru and Nuh tehsils but the demand there is lesser.
Government measures
Executive engineer, Public Health and Engineering Department (Punhana division), Vinod Siroha conceded that there was a shortage of water in a few villages in Nagina tehsil as they were at the tail end of the 73-km-long pipeline carrying water from rainy wells. “Being at the tail end, these villages in Nagina tehsil don’t get adequate water during the summer due to increased demand. Frequent and long power cuts also hamper water supply to these villages. We plan to set up another integrated boosting system to augment water supply in this area soon,” said Mr. Siroha.
He said water was supplied to around 160 villages under his jurisdiction through more than 5,000 tankers over the past two months to make up for the erratic supply through pipelines.
His claim was strongly contested by the villagers. Jalapur village sarpanch Sakunat’s husband Jaan Mohammad said not a single government tanker ever came to his village. Lukman, another villager, said that he had never seen a government water tanker in the village all these years.
