For the 7,000 residents of Morkhi, a village in Haryana’s Jind district, drinking water comes for an average of Rs 75-100 every month from a private tubewell owner. Even this isn’t regular, the supply comes once in five days. For those who can’t afford to pay, ponds, wells and a couple of handpumps installed in the village are the only sources.

This despite the fact that, according to the draft performance audit report of the Comptroller and Auditor General, Rs 22.3 crore were spent under the Rajiv Gandhi water mission between 1998 and 2005 in Jind and the districts of Sirsa, Fatehabad, Sonepat and Kaithal. As many as 87 of the 128 schemes sanctioned are still incomplete. In fact, four of the 20 water-supply schemes — including the ones in Morkhi — examined by the CAG team were found to be incomplete for as many as seven years despite an expenditure of Rs 2.84 crore.

The project in Morkhi entails getting water from the nearby Morkhi Minor distributary of the West Yamuna Canal, treating it and then sending it to houses in the village through a network of underground pipes.

“Work on the scheme began over five years ago but is still incomplete. We have made numerous requests to the district authorities, including the water supply department. But nothing has happened. We are always promised that water supply will begin in 15 days. But dozens of 15 days have come and gone but there is no safe drinking water,” says Siya Ram Bhardwaj, sarpanch of the village.

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