PATNA: “Water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink,” wrote English poet ST Coleridge wrote in 1798. This is the situation prevailing today in Bihar. In many areas of the state, floodwaters have entered houses, but the residents don’t have a drop of safe water to drink.
“Sir, we are living like water captives. Around waist-deep water has inundated us but we don’t have a pot of safe water to drink,” Saroj Yadav, 45-year-old from Sabalpur in Saran rued over the phone. Hand pumps and water supply systems installed under Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s ambitious ‘Jal Nal Yojana’ have gotten submerged under water amid flood.
Both, those who have left the village to safer places as well as those who are stranded in their homes filled with waist-high floodwater, don’t have a drop of water to drink as the state faces a scarcity of clean water.
Raghunand Kumar, an auto-rickshaw driver from Bhojpur said that all five members of his family are living like water prisoners in their home.
His rickshaw, which he had bought recently after paying Rs 1.50 lakh, has completely submerged in the floodwater. “We are living like cursed at our own fates. Amid plenty of water, we have to go three km away from the inundated village by boat to fetch a gallon of water to drink,” he said.
Poisonous aquatic reptiles like snake seen floating around in houses inundated by floodwater poses a serious threat to children as well as elders. In Patna alone, many slum pockets living near Digha, Patliputra and Ganga basin areas have flooded with waist-deep water.
Thousands of people have escaped flooded areas and are living in tents along the side of highways. Almost all districts in the state are facing a shortage of safe drinking water. Almost all districts under flood water are facing a shortage of drinking water to a great extent.
Nawal Kumar Singh from Raghopur in Vaishali district said that his water pump is submerged in waist-deep water. The supply of electricity was snapped after the electric poles fell down. “For drinking purposes, water is brought from Patna by a boat along with other villagers, facings the same problem covering a distance of nearly 10 km,” he said.