Availability, Consumption and Water problem in Budheda and Sadhraana

Budheda, a village situated in the outskirts of Gurgaon is located at about a distance of 15 kms form the city. In Budheda, the water is a little saline; making it very hard to drink. Many of the households use PHED water. But this process of supplying water is dependent on electricity. as electricity is used to store water. However, our study revealed that sweet water is also available in some of the places. Due to the climate change  and less rainfall, the underground water level is decreasing. Another reason is that the ground water is being extracted at a very fast rate, and hence the scarcity of pure drinking water. Some areas of the village witness sweet drinking water, hence the number of boring (using submersibles) in those areas are more.

Rainfall is a reason to celebrate in Budheda, because rainfall has gone drastically down with the years passing by and when it rains, it brings relief to the people. Elder sections of the people usually recall the heaviest rainfall in 1977. According to them, in 1977 it rained so heavily that the place flooded for a couple of days, and boats were used for transportation . 

We also surveyed another village named Sadhraana. It is about 20 kms from Gurgaon city and 5 kms from Budheda. Sadhraana is also called as “pandito ka gaon”, which means the village of pandits. Shadrana, again houses people of different castes which include SCs, Rajputs, Brahmins, Yadavs etc. Water is again a problem in Shadrana. The water supplied by the PHED is sweet, i.e. the area where the PHED boring is done, has sweet water. But the PHED water supply doesn’t reach to all parts of the village. The water supply by the PHED is completely dependent on electricity. The water is supplied only when the power is available. The richer section of the village draw water from the pipes using an electric motor first. Hence, the poorer sections of the village always have to face the difficulty in accessing the water. Budheda and Sadhraana, both face water problems. But, the  fact that water being wasted can not be ignored. Hence, people should be made aware of conserving water. 

A meeting with the PHED officials and the Panchayat members of Sultanpur and Jhanjhrola khera was organized, in which it was decided that people found guilty of wasting water would be fined. Hence, in this way there would be a check on the wastage of water.

In these two months of field survey in Budheda and Sadhraana, I had a great experience, and learnt many new things. . First of all, the issues of water in peri -urban area can be seen from different perspectives of vulnerability, accessibility, etc. Culture, tradition and life-styles of those villages were interesting to note.

In Assam the water problem is very much different from Haryana. In Assam, water is a reason for many problems in the village. Every year, thousands of people become homeless due to flood. Flood washes away the crops fields; many households even face famine like situation. The situation is very devastating there. Many diseases have spread by the floods like cholera, malaria, etc. People died because of flood and the crops are also washed away. But here in Sadhraana and Budheda people face problem due to water shortage. The ground water level is about 80-90 in there. The irregularity or scarcity of monsoon rains is the main reason of low productivity of monsoon crops.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Prithviraj Borah

                                                                        IIT Guwahati

                                                                                           Student Intern  

(Gurgaon), SaciWATERs

Drinking water access in Sultanpur: notes from a Dutch perspective

When leaving for India from the Netherlands, with the purpose of field research about drinking water access in peri-urban Gurgaon, I did not really know what to expect from ‘the Indian village’. What would be people’s main water resources? Would there be a government-organized supply or would people rely more on traditional water sources? And would drinking water scarcity be an issue?

            

For my MSc thesis in International Development studies, I joined SaciWaters’ peri-urban project in Gurgaon for the past three months. Most of my field research was conducted in the village of Sultanpur. A large part of this village is served by government (PHED) water supply, but this supply is erratic and the quality of the water is not trusted to be drinkable by many. The supply does not reach everywhere, as the southern part of the village is excluded from the network. For drinking water, most people rely on the groundwater from public hand pumps or private tubewells. Only a few drink the supplied water and many cannot afford a filtering system. But as groundwater tables are falling, due to climatic change and peri-urban pressures, the water is slowly becoming saline, thereby threatening the potable water reserves.

Now that the research is done and I am about to return to my home in the Netherlands, it is interesting to reflect upon the water situation from a Dutch perspective. I will return to a country where 24/7 water supply is no more than normal. From village to city, no part of the country is unserved by the public water networks. Moreover, the quality of the water is said to be among the best in the world: recent research showed that Dutch tap water is of better quality than the expensive mineral water that can be bought in bottles. As we have a single-tier supply, this high quality water is also used for bathing, washing and even flushing the toilet. For most Dutch people, opening the tap and water not coming out, would be simply unthinkable. I personally cannot recall such a thing happening even once in my lifetime.

Comparing our drinking water situation to that of Sultanpur, the differences are obviously huge. The physical labour involved in obtaining drinking water for the household, is something that belongs to the past in the Netherlands. People have long forgotten about hauling water from wells and catching rainwater in reservoirs. It is eye-opening to see how the people of Sultanpur had to fetch their own drinking water to their homes. Men and women, elderly and children, all could be seen carrying the heavy matkas with about 15-20 litres of drinking water on their head or shoulders. It is hard to imagine having to do this twice a day, for drinking water only! The time that it takes to walk up and down to the pump, waiting for your turn and then filling up the pots, which requires some physical labour as well, should not be underestimated.

Another thing that struck me was the debate about the quality of the PHED supplied water: is it filtered well enough for drinking or not? Many villagers choose to remain using their traditional groundwater sources for drinking water, even though these are depleting. According to the PHED however, the water is filtered well and suitable for drinking. Such debates are never heard in the Netherlands, where the water quality is carefully monitored and tested in order to secure healthy supply. A public testing of the supplied water in the village might help in establishing more clarity about the actual water quality. Even if the water leaving the treatment plant is safe to drink, contamination might occur during the transport, caused by breakages in the pipelines.

There are many more differences that I could write about, for instance the open sewage system in many Indian villages and the enduring influence of the caste system on water security between different population groups. But one should also keep in mind that the general situation of both countries is very different. The Netherlands is a small, low-lying and water-rich country. In fact, keeping the water out is a more salient challenge than dealing with water scarcity, such as can be experienced in the hot and dry Indian summers. As a highly developed country, the investments needed for a good quality public water network are more easily made than in India, where the scale of the investments needed is much larger as well (India being 70 times bigger than the Netherlands in terms of population and 80 times in terms of area).

Doing field work in Sultanpur has been a great learning experience for me, and brought me many new insights on drinking water access. Most of all, it has shown me that many things I used to take for granted, are not so commonplace at all.

                                                                                                                          

 Afke van der Woude

 Wageningen University

Student Intern

(Gurgaon), SaciWATERs

Water; problems in Budheda and Sadhraana

A Peri-urban area, after an interval of time, becomes urban and comes under the process of urban gigantism. It is an area which witnesses constant change; and due to the problem of this urban gigantism the resources in those areas are depleted. Water, as a natural resource also comes under the threat of being depleted. Hence, making sure and doing our best to secure water in Peri-urban areas is a thing of priority. Budheda and Sadhraana are two villages located in the Peri-urban areas of Gurgaon city. These two villages face the problem of water. Pure, safe drinking water is a problem here.

Budheda faces the problem of saline water. Water extracted from the ground there is saline. We interacted with people belonging to many communities spreading across Rajputs, Brahmins, Yadavs, Lohaars, Naais etc. In Budheda the majority of population belong to the Harijan community. The PHED water is first stored in two tanks named “Double tunkey”, and then it is supplied to the whole village through the pipelines. There are 990 households and we surveyed 101 households. We were welcomed in some households but we were also not allowed to survey in some households.

What we learnt in Budheda regarding water problem is that the water is saline in most part of the village and the PHED water supply doesn’t meet the day-to-day requirements of the people. Rich households use electric motor to draw water, and hence it becomes more difficult for the poorer section of the people to fetch water. Same is the case with Sadhraana. In Sadhraana we surveyed 50 households, again spreading across all the communities including Rajputs, Brahmins, Yadavs, Lohaars, Naais etc. Sadhraana is called “Pandito ka gaon”, which means village of the pundits (Brahmins), but the majority of people belong to Harijan community. Sadhraana too faces the problem of water. The water supplied by the PHED in Sadhraana is sweet, but the borings in the fields and the other part of the village releases saline water, which also affects the agricultural productivity.

Budheda and Sadhraana, both face the water problems but it cannot be denied that water which reaches the households is also wasted to a great extend. Hence people should be aware and should not waste water. A meeting with the PHED officials and the Panchayat members of Sultanpur and Jhanjhrola Khera was organized, in which it was decided that people found wasting water will be fined. Hence, in this way atleast wastage of water could be controlled.

                    

Tanmoy Das

                                                                                                               IIT Guwahati

Student Intern

(Gurgaon), SaciWATERs