A villager walks past the incomplete pipeline of the Dholpur-Bharatpur water transmission project, which was to supply drinking water to two districts in
Rajasthan on Monday. Tribune photo: Kamal Kishore |
Dholpur (Rajasthan), November 24
Meetho paani na rehvogo to laali ki shaadi na hogi. “If there is no sweet water then my daughter will not get married,” said Gayatri, a mother of one daughter and four sons of Baravai village in Bharatpur.
The absence of “meetha pani” is one major issue facing the desert state today. Drinking water in border districts of Dholpur and Bharatpur is saline with high fluoride contents. The flourishing mustard cultivation belt of these two districts is mainly dependent on groundwater for irrigation. Groundwater at
varying depths is brackish.
Sweet water is a premium product here and a village that does not have sweet water in its wells is also considered to be inauspicious. “Men and women don’t choose their spouses from khara paani villages,” explains Nand Bhai of the village. Other than socio-cultural implications, this khara paani is also considered to be unhealthy for crops.
Brick-kilns, which dot the area in abundance, are also losing business as saline water used in making bricks are considered fragile. Boards offering bricks made of meetha pani are cropping up outside brick kilns whose owners can afford to transport this water up to the kiln.
“To get sweet water, farmers bore their wells deeper each year. In some cases they have dug up to a thousand feet. The groundwater has depleted considerably and is cause of serious worry,” pointed out Maharaja Vishvender Singh former MP Bharatpur.
Though the water issue is part of the electoral promises being made a hundred times each by every candidate here, the fact remains that successive governments have failed to address the issue.
In early 2003, a Rs 137-crore water transmission project to bring water from the Chambal river to Bharatpur was undertaken. The project was to supply treated water to 930 villages of Bharatpur and 69 villages of Dholpur district and was to be made operational in five years.
Today, five years later, all that one sees on the 110 km Bharatpur-Dholpur road are pipelines worth crores lying and rotting by the roadside. Its obvious the Congress regime project was not given any importance during the BJP-led government in the state.
At the Chambal, some work is afoot, but most of the work done during the past few years was washed away in heavy rains this season. “When the work finally starts at a proper pace it would
take at least two years for completion,” said an employee of the company that had undertaken the project.
“The Chambal is the only perennial river in the state. It passes near Dholpur. Rainwater from Jaipur, Alwar and Sawai Madhopur districts flows to Bharatpur district, but due to the construction of dam en route, the rainwater flow has stopped. If the present situation continues, the condition of Bharatpur would be worse than the real deserts of Rajasthan,” said Krishnender Kaur, a former MP from here.
“The other source of drinking water for the area is Haryana. An understanding was reached to have the Gurgaon canal extended up to Dholpur but the government never bothered to follow it up with Haryana,” added Vishvender Singh.
