AHMEDABAD: For all the vaunted claims of a ‘Gujarat model’, it has taken the state authorities 75 years to bring tapped water to Sada village of Dediapada taluka in Narmada district. And even as the country celebrates Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, Sada’s 250 tribal inhabitants, do not have much to cheer: there is no power and no roads lead to it.
Located on the banks of Karjan river, Sada is accessible by boats. While there is considerable distance between the houses, Karjan river’s high levels of turbidity makes it unfit for consumption. Until recently, the villagers used home remedies to treat the river water by digging 50-metre seepage pits close to the banks.
Now, however, some Gujarat engineers have worked wonders to provide 24-hour running water to this village with its odd geographical conditions. Water gushed from taps in the 45 households on Sept. 7.
Gujarat Water Supply and Sewerage Board Superintending Engineer Shashi Vaghela said, “Sada is geographically undulating and has scattered population. There is no road connectivity, no electricity, no cellular network coverage and no means of transportation except by boat. All this posed a huge challenge to provide drinking water infrastructural facility”.
Vaghela said that the plan was to create a system which is sustainable and can be operated and maintained by the panchayat. “To achieve the goal to supply piped filtered water to each house, we used solar energy for electricity and the Karjan dam reservoir as a sustainable surface water source. This was done by arranging a floating platform to ensure availability of water all through the year,” he said.
For years, Sada residents depended on water from Karjan dam, said Vasava Fatesing. “Since there is no transportation facility, we are forced to use boats. Besides, there is no hand pump or bore wells in our village,” he said.
“Many years ago, a hand-bore hand pump was installed and it would provide water for a few months till January end. As the water level in the dam goes down, the hand pump runs dry. So, we used to dig wells on the river banks for drinking water. The scorching summers made life difficult, if not impossible. Now the taps bring clean water to our homes,” Fatesing said.
For Sada’s womenfolk, fetching water from the river was a tiring chore. “We would often end up consuming muddy water. And in summer, we would walk the one-and-a-half km distance between the river and their homes many times over,” said Surmila. Now, the tap water has proved to be a blessing for Surmila and all the other womenfolk.