Dreams washed out

That year, the rains just wouldn’t stop. One night we heard a deafening sound. Next morning, we found the dam washed away,” says Bachna Ram, sarpanch of Krondewal village in the Kandi area of Punjab. That was 18 years ago but the story of the damaged mud dam is now part of the folklore in Krondewal and other villages in the foothills of Shivalik, 20 km from Chandigarh. The dam crashed and with it, their hopes of ever solving the water crisis in the area.

The dam was promised as a venture that would usher in prosperity to about 4,000 villagers in Kandi area in the foothills of Shivalik, 20 km from Chandigarh. With no water to irrigate their fields, the produce of farms in Krondewal and adjoining villages has gone down drastically in the last one decade. This has compelled the villagers to give up farming and opt for menial jobs in nearby cities. Sarpanch Bachna Ram’s brother Harish had to leave for Chandigarh, where he works as a milkman.

The lack of clean drinking water has meant that villagers have to battle diseases like cholera and diarrhoea. During summers, every house in these villages has one or two people who come down with fever. With rainfall in this area scanty, there are a few wells but they aren’t enough to meet the demand. “We get water supply for just an hour every day. In summer, the situation worsens. Sometimes, people fall ill after drinking water from the shallow well,” said villager Piare Lal.

“Due to incessant rains that year, the water level in the dam rose beyond its retaining capacity. The government officials were supposed to release the extra water but nobody visited the dam. And then, it simply got washed away,” recollects sarpanch Bachna Ram.

The...