Kinangaon: Despite the government’s aim to make Jal Jeevan Mission a success story across rural India, villagers in and around Kinangaon under Chaygaon Legislative Assembly Constituency in Assam’s Kamrup district are left quenching their thirst from a natural stream.
Kinangaon village, inhabited mostly by people of the Garo tribe, is located about 14 km away from the Boko subdivision of the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED).
Over 50 disgruntled families from Kinangaon and nearby Chakrasila village (around 2 km away) continue to fetch drinking water from a stream located near a hillside in Kinangaon. They alleged that they are bound to use the natural resource due to the state government’s negligence.
Women and girls of this area fill water from the stream into pitchers and bottles that they carry in bamboo baskets.
Samadika Rabha from Chakrasila village said, “From my village more than 30 women come to this place on foot and collect around 20 litres of drinking water”. There is no sign of the JJM in her village.
Although there are wells, Kinangaon’s stream is the only source of clean drinking water for the locals. “This stream is nature’s Jal Jeevan Scheme for us,” she said.
Notably, JJM envisioned to provide safe and adequate drinking water to every rural household by 2024. This ambitious scheme has achieved 22.17 per cent success in Assam till 2021.
Bita Sangma, from Kinangaon village, said that she has been using the stream as a water source since childhood, for over three decades.
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Subdivisional officer of Boko PHED Mukut Barman said, “Under the Boko subdivision which covers Boko, Chaygaon and Palashbari constituency, around 80 percent of retrofitting work for drinking water has almost finished, including revised schemes.”
He revealed that 10 percent of the work related to new schemes works is also nearing completion. Tasks such as land finalisation and deep tube well boring is going on, he shared.
As per government orders, “all contractors under Boko PHED subdivision are working to complete work” by March, 2024, added SDO Mukut Barman.
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