No storage knowledge leads villagers from rain heavy Kaprada, Dharmapur go thirsty

Surat: Around 600 families at Sildha village of Kaprada taluka in Valsad district are going through tough times for past 15 or more days for want of water. Surprising, as this tribal-dominated area receives 2,500 mm of rainfall in a year, which is one of the highest in the state. Villagers like Moti Palsan claim that though the region is blessed with good monsoon every year, lack of storage facilities or adequate knowledge in the hilly terrain makes the residents face acute water scarcity by the time April arrives. With all natural resources of water drying up and hand pumps running dry, too, from low water levels, its a annual cycle of pain for these villagers.
Villagers here have to walk around 2km everyday to fetch water from a pond after the wells at Sildha have dried up. Around 100 villages of Kaprada and Dharmapur taluka of the district share the same fate. If that’s not all, villagers also allege that a contractor assigned to deliver eight tankers of water to the village delivers only two tankers.
For homemakers like Kashiben, her day begins at 3am as she has to go and fetch water some 2kms of her home from a pond there, slowly bowl by bowl, and then trudge back home another 2kms to get the cooking and other household works done.
A local in the neighbouring village of Varvath said, “Administration has promised us supply of required amount, but the cheating middle man and the contractors deprive us of precious water.”
District collector CR Kharsan told TOI, “After we received some complaints of insufficient supply, we conducted a survey of these 57-60 border villages. At present we are supplying 15 lakh litres of water daily through 44 tankers which make 250 runs each day to these villages which have a population of about one lakh people. These tankers cater to 123 faliyas of the 60 villages. We are trying to ensure that every one gets the supplied water.”
However, parched locals in these areas bordering Maharastra hope that rain comes to them soon. A 12-year old boy said, “It’s been more than five days now and I don’t know when I will get a bucket full of water to clean myself!”