Kandhamal tribals lay bamboo pipelines to bring water to their homes

Villagers used bamboo to fetch water from springs originating from hills, 500 metres from their settlement 
Villagers lay the pipeline to Badimaha village under Raikia block of Kandhamal  | EXPRESS
Villagers lay the pipeline to Badimaha village under Raikia block of Kandhamal | EXPRESS

BERHAMPUR/BHUBANESWAR: For more than 150 years, villagers in two tribal-dominated hamlets of Kandhamal district considered safe drinking water a treasured item in their households. A glass of water could trigger disputes between neighbours in these remote villages - blessed by nature with abundant resources but neglected by Government officials. They had no choice but to rely on the same nullah or pit for drinking water, bathing and washing clothes or domestic animals. 

Finally, they decided to wait no more for any help of provisioning of amenities for safe drinking water by the administration. They resolved to find their own way out of the crisis and constructed a 500 mtr-long pipeline using bamboo to fetch water from springs originating from surrounding hills to their settlements. The ingenious pipeline was completed at Badimaha village under Sugadbadi gram panchayat in the district’s Raikia block in the last week of August. Around 30 residents of this tiny village, inhabited by tribal farmers, took less than five days to build the pipeline with 60 bamboo pieces collected from nearby forests and discarded worn-out tyres and tubes. 

<strong>A woman collects water from the bamboo pipeline</strong>
A woman collects water from the bamboo pipeline

The village with a population of less than 100 had a single tube well besides another nullah running through the outskirts. “The water pumped out from the tube well, installed four years back, was muddy. It emitted foul odour. So, we stopped drinking from it soon. We have been repeatedly pleading before the panchayat officials and BDO to resolve our problem, but none came to our help. Our women would either fetch water from the nullah or climb up the hill to fill vessels from the spring,” said Dayanidhi Pradhan, the village leader. 

Making the pipeline wasn’t an easy task. Helping them with the idea and implementation was a local social worker Ashutosh Sahu and volunteers of some non-voluntary organisations working in the district. With bamboo available in abundance in the area, the villagers agreed to the proposal of bamboo pipelines. While the volunteers helped prepare a master plan for the pipeline, the villagers worked tirelessly for gathering materials and creating the structure. During daytime they worked in fields, but spent the afternoon and evenings giving shape to their life transforming project.

“We decided to use bamboo to ensure there was minimum expense burden on the poor villagers. However, the pipeline will require maintenance and replacement at regular intervals and this is not feasible in the long run. The district administration must ensure the village is supplied with piped water” Sahu said.
 A local RWSS official said  owing to the terrain, the soil in the region has low water retention capacity and digging a tubewell is an impossible task. He said RWSS has come up with a proposal to supply water to the village from a stream nearby. 

In another village Niski under Sonepur Gram Panchayat of Daringibadi block with population of around 150, a similar pipeline was laid by the people. “The women in this village had to walk more than a kilometre to fetch water from the spring. The village had no tubewell. We (the voluntary groups) decided to encourage the villagers for making the pipeline after an unfortunate incident took place. A woman, who had gone to fetch water from the spring during late evening, died of snake bite,” said Dinabandhu Maharana, a local activist. 

The villagers also alleged that they had fallen ill several times due to consumption of contaminated water. But hard work has paid off and now the villagers are drinking fresh water from the spring - gushing through the bamboo pipes to get poured and stored into a concrete tank.

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