No sign of tap water in Satpura hamlets but govt website lists names of beneficiaries

NANDURBAR: Under the scorching sun high in the Satpura mountain ranges, 91-year-old Malsingh Versingh Pawra trudges two km every day to fetch water from a well, bearing two heavy pots back to his hut.

Govt records talk of success with Jal Jeevan Mission and on the website, Pawra is a beneficiary. His dilapidated hut stands in Udadya, a hamlet with 301 households.

The Jal Jeevan Mission website shows that 95% (287 households) in the hamlet have functional house tap connections. But Malsingh’s routine starkly contrasts the promised convenience.

The bewildered man, whose life is defined by toil in a rugged terrain, said that the notion of a water connection in his dwelling is an unimaginable luxury.

“I don’t know how my name appeared on the website as a beneficiary,” he said. A few neighbours want to know why only Malsingh would get water from govt. The scheme is so foreign that Malsingh has nothing to say as he has not seen a water tap at home all these decades.

Juharya Malsingh Pawra (41), another ‘beneficiary’ from the same hamlet, laughed when asked about the Jal Jeevan scheme. Wearing a torn T-shirt and a towel wrapped around his waist, he went about his routine fetching water from a nearby hand pump.

“I have never heard about this scheme, no one has said anything in the village. We always get water either from the well or the hand pump,” he added.

He has no clue how his name is on the beneficiaries’ list. “Sometimes, panchayat officials ask for my Aadhaar. I don’t know how it is used for a scheme,” Juharya said, his voice mirroring confusion.

The website has updated records to keep track of the scheme’s progress. Several villages from Nandurbar district showed up with several houses having water connections but the reality is far from it.

Nirmala Sitharaman had announced the scheme under ministry of Jal Shakti in the 2019 Union budget to provide tap water to every rural household every day by 2024.

Bhabari hamlet is a few km from Udadya. The website shows 276 households with water connections, but only six beneficiaries are listed. One of them is Surpalya Gardya Pawra (46), who along with his wife, fetches water from a nearby well. There is no trace of a pipeline in his house or the village.

“How will there be a pipeline if there is no water?” Surpalya’s wife said. She said they had never got a connection. “All our lives we been carrying water from the well. I never saw anyone in this hamlet with a water connection,” Surpalya adds.

Others gathered to discuss the matter, but all said they have never seen or had a water connection. "Now, the news of this scheme will surely reach every household," one villager said, triggering a round of laughter.

Nandurbar ZP CEO Sawan Choudhary said, “The data is incorrect. There is no work done under Jal Jeevan Mission in these hamlets. I will investigate who entered the wrong data on the website and get it rectified.”

After enduring 77 years of neglect and a litany of unfulfilled election promises, Nandurbar’s hamlets find themselves waiting for candidates to deliver after they voted on May 13.
This Lok Sabha poll season too saw frenzied campaigning and party-affiliated vehicles traversing the narrow roads. But the ‘beneficiaries’ of Jal Jeevan Mission continued their daily walk to fetch water.

Amidst the arid landscape, the notion of a pipeline bringing water to one's home remains the wildest of dreams. “This is one of the many schemes common in Nandurbar where no one gets anything,” a young villager summed up the Jal Jeevan Mission.