Sixty-year-old Fula Devi, a resident of Shahpur Kasim village in Vaishali district, Bihar, stares at tough days ahead.

Her eyes well up as she talks about how her crops have been destroyed due to lack of water.

“I have lost all my cash crops spread over in 10 kathas of land (17,000 sqft) and incurred losses worth more than Rs 25,000. Our misery does not end here. We have to struggle for drinking water, as well. All the hand pumps have dried up here,” says Fula Devi.

Bihar is known for abundance of water resources and is flood-prone. However, several of its districts are facing acute water crises this summer due to mismanagement of water bodies and population boom.

The water table has gone below 250 feet from ground level and hand pumps and tube wells, the main sources of water for drinking and irrigation in most of the villages, have also dried up.

A defunct hand pump in Vaishali district.

Even as locals are struggling to cope with this crisis, farmers are the worse-affected group.

Given the non-availability of irrigation water and intense heat, their crops are fighting for survival. Their life stock is not getting the required quantity of drinking water either.

Shahpur Kasim is one of the many villages in Vaishali district where people are grappling with the crisis.

With tube wells and hand pumps always having water at the level of 55 feet, villagers here never had to face such a situation till last year.

The situation has now turned grave as the water table has gone below 250 feet and government hand pumps have failed to pull water from deep below.

In another village named Brahmapur in the same district, underground water tanks have been constructed at the level of 20-50 feet with water motors installed to pull water from that level. The water is then hand-pumped for consumption.

Collecting drinking water has turned into a nightmare for the villagers. Here, women flock to get a few buckets of muddy water to carry out daily activities of life.

There are fewer wells left with water due to the onslaught of tube wells and hand pumps.

While some parts of the district are receiving drinking water through tankers sent by the government, others are buying the same.

Chandan Kumar is another victim who has incurred heavy losses as his mango orchard and lychee plantation have completely turned dry.

A dried-up lychee plantation.

Kumar had planted the crops in 10 acres of land, but as there has been hardly any yield, he incurred losses worth Rs 5 lakh.

“The crisis is severe because the water level has gone down severely. No one had ever imagined that tube wells in the village could become defunct like hand pumps as they were bored 100-200 feet below ground level.”

There are several villages in Lalganj block of Viashali district are facing a similar crisis, but the situation is worst in Sirsa.

Besides the mango and lychee orchards, wheat sown on hectares of lands have perished because of fall in water levels in the region.

Some of the well-off villagers have installed submersible pumps at 350 feet below the ground level to get drinking water.

Rajeshwar Singh, who has a fish pond in Sirsa village, is making use of the submersible pump.

“We were left with no other option as our ponds were drying up and fish had started dying. Also, there was drinking water crisis,” says Singh.

Mushar Tola in the same village is another badly hit area where elderly people can be seen carrying potable water home after walking for a kilometer.

The Jal Nal Yojana (water and tap scheme) that was devised to provide potable water to every household in the state has not been successful due to improper implementation and corruption at all levels.

The scheme has also seen wastage of water.

According to provisions of the scheme, every APL (above poverty line) family would be charged a water tax of Rs 60 a month, while BPL (below poverty line) families would have to pay Rs 30 every month for the same.

The government had also decided to provide filtered drinking water to areas which have high levels of arsenic and iron in the water.

The district public health engineering (PHE) department has devised a long-term plan towards water conservation and usage.

As part of the project, the department plans to install iron containers near farms of one acres to collect water during rain.

Executive Engineer (PHE) Manoj Kumar told News18, “There is a no clear policy on part of the government regarding the installation of submersible pumps, the rampant use of which is taking down groundwater further.”

“The department is planning to launch an awareness programme on water usage and its conservation in the district and trying to make it a part of the school curriculum.”

Vaishali usually gets 1,168mm of rain annually, though last year, it saw a deficit of 52.7% — the highest in any Bihar district.

State PHE Minister Vinod Narayan Jha, who is reportedly taking stock of the prevailing situation on a daily basis, said at a recent press conference, “The department is well prepared to meet any challenge thrown by deficit rainfall in districts. We are monitoring the groundwater table reports on a daily basis “

He said 25 districts in the state are drought-affected and the government had identified 37,000 non-functional hand pumps of which 15,010 pumps been repaired, while 3,440 have been replaced.