Election in Pincodes: Central scheme a ray of hope for parched Banda
HT looks at some key constituencies across the country that encapsulate the issues shaping the ongoing Lok Sabha electoral contest
Chitrakoot: In Pathramani, the everyday is smeared with drudgery. Paved roads are few and bullock carts kick up balls of dust from unpaved alleys. Rust-red hillocks and boulders leading up to the village resemble the bleak landscape of Mars. Even when it rains, the village is largely dry because the terrain doesn’t allow rainfall to seep into the earth, necessary for aquifers. A few ponds nearby have water, but during the long, harsh summer, they turn brackish and salty.
For as long as he can remember, it has been like this. Dharmendra Kumar Mishra is among the most powerful men in the village. As the custodian of the village ration shop, Mishra is responsible not just for dispensing the monthly dole of grains but also for checking identity cards and other documents.
He is often the conduit between the government and villagers who find it difficult accessing the collectorate 70km away in district headquarters Banda. His four-room house that he shares with his wife, son, brother, and parents is among the biggest in the village. His position ensures that a stream of filled pots from nearby wells or hand pumps keeps the household supplied. But even he couldn’t escape the ignominy of only air coming out of the taps in his newly constructed bathrooms.
Until this March. In the second week of March, water gushed out of the taps in this village of 1,500 people as the central government’s flagship Jal Jeevan Mission (water is life mission ) – to make available tap water in each one of India’s 190 million rural homes – finally completed its target in Pathramani.
“We rubbed our eyes in disbelief as we saw clean water flow out of the taps. Some of us danced around the taps, others bathed in the open, and all of us thought that this was too good to last, and started filling up all available utensils,” says Mishra.
It has lasted.
The programme was launched by the Narendra Modi government in 2019 to provide safe and adequate drinking water through individual household tap connections by 2024. In Uttar Pradesh, the scheme has touched roughly 83% of all households, according to the national dashboard. In parched Bundelkhand, this has prompted wider change.
“Life was hell earlier. We would leave our houses early in the morning to beat the heat to fetch water from nearby areas. We walked kilometres every day. We were left so exhausted that even going to the bathroom was an effort,” says Savitri Devi, a local resident.
Resentment about its parched homes prevented Pathramani from voting in the 2019 Lok Sabha and 2022 assembly elections. But this time, villagers say they’ll revoke their boycott when polling is conducted on May 20. On their mind will be an additional factor from the usual binary of migration and caste – water.
Getting water is a long haul in the inhospitable terrain of Bundelkhand. Spread over 70,000 sq km in 13 districts of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, the region faced non-stop drought between 2003 and 2010, decimating farming and setting off waves of outward migration.
Seven of Bundelkhand’s districts lie in Uttar Pradesh: Chitrakoot, Banda, Mahoba, Hamirpur, Lalitput, Jhansi and Jalaun. All are thirsty, but none more than Chitrakoot, once the mythical abode of Lord Ram where the topography forces engineers to blast through rocks for laying pipes.
Rainfall is concentrated in the months of July and August, leaving little time for the water to leach through the soil. The rest runs off the denuded hill slopes with scarce vegetation to trap the precipitation. Moreover, high summer temperatures, sometimes nearing 50 degrees Celsius, cause quick evaporation in ponds.
As a result, for decades, villagers – most of them women – walked kilometres every day to fetch water. Many resorted to jugaad – digging underneath the ground to eke out water and then use it after straining the dust and silt with a cloth.
In Pathramani, the nearest water source – a well and four hand pumps –were within a kilometre of the village, but by May, they would dry up, rendering even daily chores an uphill task.
“It took us about a month and a half to ensure supply to villages like Pathramani but seeing the joy in the eyes of the people made the whole effort worth it,” says Rohit Sahay, a project manager with Larsen and Toubro, the construction agency — GVPR is the other — tasked with ensuring water supply in the Chitrakoot-Banda belt.
It is a five-step process. Water from the Yamuna is first pumped into an intake well constructed under the Chandi Bangar Gram Samooh Payjal Yojana at Chillimal village in Rajapur. From there, through another pumping station , the water is sent to a treatment plant. After treatment, it is pumped through a 35 kilometre-long main pipeline into a clear water reservoir in Audaha village. Then, the water is pumped up into an overhead tank constructed near Pathramani. In the final step, the water supply to every household is ensured.
“Har Ghar Nal Ka Jal project is underway and in different phases in 416 other revenue villages of Chitrakoot. In 118 villages, the water supply has started, and the entire project is constantly monitored from Lucknow with an in-depth review and analysis of the progress and other requirements,” says Ashish Kumar, executive engineer, Jal Nigam (Gramin), Chitrakoot.
Water pipelines now dot the bleak landscape with pumping stations at regular intervals to ensure enough pressure to enable treated water to be deposited in overhead tanks constructed outside prominent villages in Chitrakoot. After Pathramani, the work of testing and commissioning is now under way in other nearby villages.
There are teething problems. “This is a hilly region and my house is located a little higher so the water supply in my area is patchy at the moment, but the ones downhill are getting daily water,” Mishra says.
But no one is complaining. “The fact this time our village is not boycotting elections is proof that things have begun to change,” Mishra adds.
Water shapes life and society in India. The walls of Gopipur village are a testimony to this.
In this region, communities announce marital unions by painting their houses with the details of the bride and the groom using traditional colour and art. But the walls in Gopipur are barren; due to scarcity of water, no families allow their daughters to be married to men there.
“Our children migrated out since they neither had a job nor a life partner. The harshness of life was the reason for large-scale palayan (exodus). Now this ‘Har Ghar Nal’ has raised hope that our families can unite again,” says Maharani Devi, 60.
In this village of 2,500 people, many houses are locked for years as water shortages shrivelled families. But with water trickling out of taps in nearby Pathramani, hope is rising and some people are coming back.
“We shifted as, along with the water crisis, there were hardly any jobs. So, we migrated in the hope of a better life,” says Prabha Kumari, who migrated to Satna district in Madhya Pradesh but is now back as the Jal Jeevan Mission’s water tester, a job profile that requires her to visit each household with field test kits to test the quality of water.
Similar employment training is being imparted to local men as plumbers, fitters, masons and pump operators under the water at your doorstep project, officials said. Piped water will follow soon, they hope.
In adjoining Sarhat village, women said between six and eight hours a day would be lost in fetching water from afar, balancing several pitchers on their head and hands. “We couldn’t pursue our studies as most of the time would be lost in trips to fetch water,” says Lilavati.
That’s no longer the case, the reason why teething problems such as low pressure, misfiring valves, and missing taps do not cause consternation. “There are still some issues like poor pressure and irregular supply. But the taps and the water that flows out of them is real,” says Kavita Verma, a resident from Gopipur who studied till Class 12 before dropping out.
Pathramani, Gopipur and Sarhat are part of the Banda Lok Sabha constituency that goes to the polls on May 20. Four of the five assembly segments that make up the seat are held by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has also won the Lok Sabha constituency since 2014.
This time, nearly every election pitch by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Yogi Adityanath have included the Jal Jeevan Mission and how it has made a difference in the lives of the poor. Modi has repeatedly said that he is determined to fulfil his 2019 poll promise of resolving the region’s water crisis.
“This is a dream project and has the full attention of the chief minister,” said Uttar Pradesh’s principal secretary, Anurag Srivastava who has been tasked with the water mission since inception.
It will be a central theme of the PM’s announced east UP push beginning later this week and the message will be driven home by state jal shakti minister Swatantra Dev Singh, who hails from Bundelkhand, said the BJP.
Politics in Banda has traditionally revolved around the 2Ps – paani (water) and palayan (migrant exodus).
The major contest is between sitting BJP MP RK Patel, who is taking on the Bahujan Samaj Party’s Mayank Dwivedi, the son of former BSP lawmaker Purshottam Dwivedi, and the Samajwadi Party’s Krishna Devi Patel, wife of former lawmaker Shiv Shankar.
“It’s Brahmin vs Kurmi (OBC) here and despite the larger narratives, ultimately people here have always ended up voting on caste lines. But, this is the first election when water has reached some villages of Chitrakoot,” said Ravindra Tiwari, a retired school principal in Chitrakoot.
Campaigning in Banda on Monday, Adityanath played up the BJP government’s push to ensure functional tap water connections and told the people: “Don’t waste your vote on those who kept you thirsty all these years.”
BSP candidate Mayank Dwivedi attempted to project confidence. “The only development that was done here was during Behenji Mayawati’s time. Rest all is eyewash. Once I am elected, we will bring development focus back to the area.”
The SP candidate Krishna Devi Patel, the first woman candidate named by any party in the constituency in nearly 15 years, is holding a door-to-door campaign, promising to change the fortunes of the region with jobs.
“All claims of the BJP are hollow, be it on open defecation or drinking water. Go and check for yourself in villages. The problems that existed have aggravated in the 10 years of the BJP government. Rhetoric is now failing and the BJP is nervous now,” said former minister and SP leader Rajendra Chaudhary.
But for women such as Kavita Verma, the water flowing out of their taps is very real -- and an election issue.“Now at least, our generation won’t have to take bullock carts just to fetch water,” said Verma.
“Our lives will become normal.”
This is the 25th in a series of election reports from the field that look at national and local issues through an electoral lens.