Pipes laid, taps turned on and then, the wait for funds

KANDI, MAY 8 : Mohammad Younus, a schoolteacher in Kandi village near Jammu, took more than two years to find a suitable match. That was because people in neighbouring villages didn’t want to marry their daughters off to someone in Kandi, where women had to trek long distances to reach the nearest well.

Now with Younus finally married, he faces another problem. Each time his wife goes to fetch water from the well, he accompanies her to ensure that she does not fall into it. “She does not know how to fetch water from a well as she is from a village where water is available in plenty,” Younus said. His fears are not unfounded. A number of people and cattle have died after falling into village wells.

But it wasn’t that the authorities hadn’t tried. Engineers of the Public Health Engineering (PHE) had formulated a project under the Accelerated Rural Water Supply Project (ARWSP) and had even spent Rs 40 lakh on it by March 2006. But they bungled by not doing something basic—getting the required administrative approval for the project.

While N.K. Sapolia, Assistant Executive Engineer, PHE Akhnoor Division, denied that they had ever formulated any water supply scheme for Kandi, his predecessor Jai Pal, who is now Executive Engineer, Irrigation and Flood Control, Akhoor, said a scheme that involved the construction of a dugwell between Balla and Godan was devised. The project, estimated to cost Rs 40 lakh, was scheduled for 2005-06.

Work started in 2003-04 and a trial pit dug up but it didn’t have enough water. The PHE engineers then decided to help some localities in Kandi by getting them water from Balla. But since the existing well at the Balla pumping station did not have enough water to meet the demands of local residents, the PHE engineers connected it with another well under the centrally sponsored Integrated Watershed Development Programme. They also installed pumps to supply water to a new 30,000-gallon reservoir near Kandi. Water was then pumped from this reservoir to Master Muccha Singh mohalla in Balla and Nek Alam mohalla in Kandi. But people in Nek Alam mohalla complained that they still didn’t get water because they on a height compared to the reservoir.

The PHE engineers revised the cost of the scheme to Rs 69 lakh. But what they had forgotten was they hadn’t got the administrative approval for the first scheme. And so, no funding was made and the...

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