Villages in Maharashtra face severe water scarcity: report

Melghat (Maharashtra): The Khadial village in the Melghat district of Maharastra is facing their usual shortage of water when summer peaks. Many residents were seen using plastic and metal cans, buckets and bottles etc., to draw water from deep wells here, Asian News International (ANI) reports.

The news agency quotes the villagers that they are "risking their lives for a bucket of water".

A villager told ANI that there are only two wells in the village, and they are nearly dried up. A population of 1,500 people depends on 2-3 tankers of water every day, the villager added.

Another said that water is supplied to the village by the tankers pouring the supplies into dry wells. People risk their lives drawing water from these wells, and diseases are increasing among the population due to drinking dirty water, the villager added.

The onset of summer hits various parts of India, including Maharashtra, hard with the water scarcity issue.

Further, the villagers complain about the bad condition of roads there.

"There is no road to take" sick people to the hospital, ANI quotes a villager.

ANI had reported the water scarcity from Chichlekhaire village in Igatpuri in Nashik last week. A female resident of the village walks 3 kilometres to fetch water, and the villagers have no choice but to draw muddy water from a deep well. The water level in the well went below the base of the well, the ANI report had stated.

In Rohile village in Nashik also, women enter dangerously deep wells to fetch water as scarcity hits hard this village population too.