Jolted by the death of a six-year-old boy who fell into an abandoned borewell in Vallemkunta village in Karimnagar district on Friday, the administration has been activated to conduct a survey of uncapped borewells.
Ayesha Khan, RDO of Manthani, said a similar survey had previously been conducted in the district but another will be conducting again to identify hazardous borewells and cap them.
As per Transco figrues, there are some 3.25 lakh irrigation pumpsets in the district, 15 per cent of them servicing borewells.
Abandoned borewells have claimed five victims, mostly little children, in the state since 2005. While the official policy is to cap failed borewells, farmers often leave them open or barely covered by a brush of thorn or a stone slab.
In Vallamekunta village for instance, where little Aitha Ajeeth fell into a borewell on Friday, there are two more open borewells, covered with thorn bushes. One borewell at the Huzurabad shopping complex near bus station has only a misplaced boulder covering it. Five more borewells were reported to have been abandoned and not capped in Chelpular and Sirsapalli villages.
Borewell deaths have begun to beset the Telangana districts after the sequence of drought years from 2001 to 2004, when farmers distressed dug many borewells. Many of them yielded no water and were abandoned, poorly covered or marked.
Alarmed by the deaths of children falling into open borewells, the Supreme Court in 2010 the state administrations to conduct surveys and cap open borewells within three months.
When there was no action by July 2010, the court warned the chief secretaries of states that they would held accountable for the failure to cap open borewells. While district administrations furnish figures citing the number of borewells capped since that order, villages in Telangana continue to have hazardous borewells.
In Nalgonda district, for instance, which saw such a borewell death seven years ago, officials say most of the 2.5 lakh borewells in the district are fully functional and none are abandoned. However, sources say that of the 300 borewells sunk in the district under the Indira Jalaprabha programme, 152 did not yield water. They were not closed as the farmers wanted them kept open in the vain hope that the ground water would be recharged if the rains were good. Some are covered with stones, but not properly capped.
As per the Water Land Trees (WALTA) Act, a farmer is required to take the permission of local authorities before sinking a borewell including that of the tahsildar. Often, permissions are not taken, with the result that when a child falls into it, the local officials have no data on the borewell, including how deep it is. Consequently, rescue efforts are hampered.
Of the six cases of borewell mishaps since 2005, only one ended in the successful rescue of the victim. That happened in December 2011, when an 18-month-old boy Thirumalesh fell into an abandoned borewell in Bingidodi village in Mahabubnagar district.