MALKANGIRI: Located on the Bonda Hill, the small village of Bandipada under Khairput block does not have proper road communication network. Villagers, belonging to the Bonda tribe, have to cross nullahs and forests to reach the foothill in order to access healthcare and avail government benefits.
When a daughter of the village Malati Sisa returned to Bandipada from Bhubaneswar a month back after completing her MA in Economics from KIIT University, she came across a new problem - lack of drinking water.
The lone tubewell in the village had gone defunct four months back and villagers’ attempts to draw attention of officials concerned had failed to yield any response. With no other option, the Bonda villagers had to depend on a nullah, on the outskirts of Bandipada, to bring water for drinking and cooking. Daughter of a farmer Dhabulu Sisa, 25-year-old Malati saw her mother and three younger sisters walk a km every day along with other women of the village to fetch water from the stream.
With officials paying little heed, Malati decided to take up the matter in her hands and dig a well on the premises of her thatched house for the benefit of all the 60 families of the village. With the help of her father and sisters - Sukri, Lily and Ranjita - she dug up the land behind her house. Although the Sisa family does not have much savings, Dhabulu gave Malati `7,000 to buy a motor pump to drain out the muddy water from the well. The family worked round-the-clock for five days to dig the earth until they hit clean water earlier this week.
The entire village is now drawing water from the 14-ft deep and four-ft wide well for meeting their drinking water needs. While the villagers are happy with Malati’s efforts, they said the local administration should take measures to address the perennial problem of water scarcity in the village. When Khairput BDO Hruda Ranjan Sahu came to know about the incident, he said efforts will be taken soon to renovate the defunct tubewell. Also, Malati’s family will be paid for their labour in digging the well under the MGNREGS, he added.
When the lone tubewell in Malkangiri’s Bandipada became defunct, 25-yr-old Malati along with her father and 3 sisters dug up a 15-ft deep well to provide water in the village inhabited by Bonda primitive tribals, writes Deba Prasad Dash