Women in Barde Chi Wadi rappel down a 60-foot deep well every April and May when the water level drops. FileIn April, a video of women rappelling down a 60-feet well using flimsy ropes to get water had attracted eyeballs towards Barde Chi Wadi, a small tribal hamlet abutting the Upper Vaitarna Dam, which supplies water to Mumbai.
During a fortnight of intense media glare, the hamlet was promised a dedicated water pipeline, water storage units and electric pumps. As the media glare subsided, things went back to being the way they were.
Leela Pardhi (24) had hoped that with the government, politicians and volunteers, including locals as well as foreigners, promising to transform the small settlement — located 170 km north of Mumbai — into a model village, she would no longer have to rappel down a 60-feet well in the dead of the night.
Since March, Leela and other women from the 65-odd families of the hamlet would wake up at 2 am every night to beat the waterhole rush that is witnessed around the only well there. They would tuck in their saris tightly and rappel down a 60-foot deep well with only a torchlight showing the way.
This rappelling down the well is an annual affair for these women. They do it every April and May when the water level drops. With the area witnessing less than adequate rainfall this year, their problem had been accentuated further.
Earlier this month, the decision of the Takedevgaon gram panchayat to stop water tankers to the hamlet and acute delay in rains had forced Leela and many other women of Barde Chi Wadi to restart their arduous descent into the village well.
While they did fear for the lives, the fact that no one had fallen so far gave the women some comfort. However, this changed on June 19, when on her second trip on the night, Leela’s rope snapped and hurled her 40 feet down into the bottom of the well. It took villagers over two hours to pull Leela out with her having suffered a back injury.
Broken promises by the state and NGOs has meant that women of BardeChiWadi have been forced again to rappel down the 60 ft village well to fetch water. Last week Leela Pardhi feel from a height of 40 feet after the flimsy rope used to go down the well snapped.@IndianExpress pic.twitter.com/Q9S424ItWv
— zeeshan shaikh (@zeeshansahafi) July 1, 2019
Villagers claimed that the accident points towards the callous attitude of the state. “Our village was under intense media glare. We had so many people, including government officials and NGOs, visiting. All promised that they would make things better for us. After a few days of help, everything seems to have been forgotten and we have been left to lead lives the way we did before,” Sanjay Pardhi, Leela’s husband, said.
Barde Chi Wadi lies less than two km away from Vaitarna Dam, which with a capacity of 330 million cubic metres, supplies water to residents of Mumbai who stay in a radius of 120 km from the dam site.
An average Mumbaikar gets around 100 to 307 litres of water for his personal use, supplied through taps. To get the same amount of water for their families, the women of Barde Chi Wadi would have to rappel up and down the well over 15 times.
In spite of staying so close to a water body, Barde Chi Wadi is not allowed to access the water. The villagers had for long been demanding that a direct pipeline be laid from Vaitarna Dam to their village but the local administration shot down the proposal believing that it could open a floodgate of such demands from nearby villages and hamper supply to cities like Mumbai.
Soon after the video came to light just before Lok Sabha elections, the administration decided to construct four water storage units in the village. The idea was to fill up these units with water from one of the 3,800 water tankers that the government had deployed across the state to tackle drought.
The tanker turned up diligently for a month at Barde Chi Wadi before its services stopped. The decision was taken by the Takedevgaon gram panchayat after residents of other hamlets questioned the undue favour being bestowed on Barde Chi Wadi.
“Under existing government rules, none of this hamlets that face acute water shortage can get government water tankers because they are located within two km of an existing water body. The tanker had had come due to media pressure and the gram panchayat was forced to pay for it. Other villagers got angry and questioned why panchayat money should be spent only for one hamlet and the tanker was stopped,” tribal activist Bhagwan Madhe said.
Madhe claimed that this rule was being implemented even when the residents had no access to drinking water.
“Officials can see that the women have to trek three to four km to get drinking water. Still, they are not sending water tanker to this village because they say it is against rules,” he said.
With no tanker and no rains till last week, the women Barde Chi Wadi had to start rappleing down the well again.
When contacted, Nashik District Collector Suraj Mandhare acknowledged that these was a problem. “Under the existing government resolution, the hamlet does not qualify for a water tanker. It is sad that women have to risk their lives and rappel down the well to get water. I have asked my officials to visit the spot and see if we can ensure water supply to the village under some scheme,” he added.
Officials from the district administration visited the hamlet earlier this week after The Indian Express raised the issue of the village with Mandhare. A proposal to lay a pipeline under the Mukhyamantri Grameen Peyjal Yojna is now being proposed and the officials hope that it would be operational by next summer.
But villagers like Leela, who is still recuperating from her back injury, are taking the assurances with a pinch of salt.
“All the people who came to our village after our video went viral promised to do so much, only to all disappear one by one. The government might say that it will sort out our problems now. I, however, will not believe a word. Mumbai survives because of the water it gets from our area but women here risk their lives everyday for something as basic as water,” Leela said.
