The situation is vastly different now. Now the village has two hand pumps and 19 stand posts, thanks to the Development Alternatives - Arghyam intervention. Now the women do not have to walk miles to fetch water. For the location of the water sources, choices and preferences of villagers were taken into consideration. But still women in the villages spent most of their time in collecting water. ‘I make 4 to 5 trips a day to the hand pump and to the stand post. Since the last two months there is no electricity so we could not avail the advantage of pipe water supply’, says Sharda Devi. Villagers do not have enough money to pay their dues. Operation and maintenance cost of the water supply scheme is provided by the Gram Panchayat. Sharda Devi also says, ‘In our Samagra Jal Vikash Samiti, we have 9 women members. Now all the women of this village want to tackle the problem of water logging and wastewater disposal. We know that many water-borne diseases are because of water accumulation as is the case with vector-borne diseases.’

These villagers do not know anybody who is trained to repair hand pumps. If there is some technical fault, the villagers have to wait for the mechanic at least for 2 to 3 days.

Development Alternatives (DA) and Arghayam have briefed the villagers about safe drinking water practices in the village. It was a great help for the women of Pipra. ‘Now I want every household of the village to have toilets. I can understand how difficult it is for women to go out for defecation. I have two daughters; they motivated me to build a toilet at our home. Now we do not have to go out to defecate,’ says Sharda Devi.

Sharda is a woman of substance who has encouraged leadership among women in her village. She has been able to give space and voice to other women.

Prema Ahirwar is the secretary of the Ravi Das Shayam Sahayata Samuh of Pipra village. She and her group members fought for their water rights in their village. Earlier, they had to walk at least a kilometer to collect water and every day they used to make 4 to 5 trips. It was a tough time. ‘Men do not understand our problems. Collecting and providing water to the families is completely our job. They never understand how difficult it is to carry 5-6 liters of water on our shoulders and heads. We still feel sore,’ said Prema.

When Arghayam and DA came to help them, many people of Pipra village opposed the move. Convincing them took a lot of effort. Women came together to fight for their own rights. they understood the problems associated with the scarcity of water. Availability of water cannot solve the problem alone. After getting the facility of water sources, now there was a different kind of problem. The village is currently facing power shortage. Without power, these villagers cannot solve the problem of water supply. Prema says, ‘Our next target is to get proper and regular electricity supply. Today is the fifteenth day that the hand pump nearest to my house is not working. We made complaints about the problem but the Gram Panchayat is not taking any action. There is no mechanic in our village who can solve this kind of a problem. We have to wait for a mechanic. We need training programmes for minor repairing works, so that we do not have to wait for mechanics.’

Women have to come forward; otherwise this problem will never be solved. The water problem in Pipra could be solved only after the women came forward. Hence, it is time the women again take up the cudgels and commit themselves in earnest to find solutions to their problems.

She is fondly called by her fellow villagers as Amma in Hastinapur village. Amma is around 60 years old. She says, ‘I still feel the pain of carrying 3 to 4 liters of water everyday. I belong to backward caste. We were not allowed to fetch water from the sources used by the upper caste people.’ The upper caste people conveniently gave the lower caste villagers a well that was located in an agricultural field far away from the village. Amma used to walk 1.5 kilometers everyday in one trip. Because of the heavy water pot, she still suffers from a terrible back pain that she mentioned in the interview.

When the water supply programme came to the village, Amma was a little relieved. It meant that she no longer had to traverse huge distances to fetch water. ‘Now the upper caste people cannot look down upon us because we also pay the same charges for the water. As we pay the same charges, we also have the right to fetch water from these stand posts,’ says a happy and relieved Amma.

Now, building a toilet in her house tops Amma’s priority list. Amma has a daughter-in-law now, and she needs a toilet. She says, ‘Our time has gone. It is now a prestige issue.’

Arti is a student of class VI and a member of the Bal Panchayat in her school. Her duties include making people understand the importance of safe drinking water and basic hygiene practices. She tells her fellow students about water-borne diseases. She instructs the students to use the Jal TARA water quality testing kit made by DA.

‘I was trained in my school to use the water testing kit and our teachers told us why we should drink only clean and safe water,’ said Arti.

The Bal Panchayat members carry out a lot of activities in the village regarding water and sanitation. They tell their parents and others about the diseases that occur due to unsafe drinking water. They also want to motivate all the other children of the village about basic hygiene practices. In the village, many people do not have toilets. The village does not have any mechanism for wastewater disposal. As a result of stagnant water, various diseases such as malaria, diarrhea, etc., are a common occurrence.

Arti philosophises, ‘People should respect water resources. Jal hi Jiwan hain. No one can survive without water.’

Behind the thin veil of the dark green saree, her smile and the sparkle in her eyes reveal a sense of empowerment, determination and happiness. Savita played the role of a catalyst in bringing water to Hastinapur village.

Savita says, ‘I do not remember how many times I fell down while carrying the water pots. I had to wake up early in the morning, much before my family, to collect water.’

It was a tough job to find water in Hastinapur village, more so because the village is situated atop a hillock. It took the villagers many months in finding sources of water to meet their daily needs.

Savita, her friend Mithila Devi and many other women of the village came forward to collect money from each household to set up a water pump in their village. They individually took the responsibility and asked all the women to come forward to tackle the problem of water scarcity. Their efforts paid dividends; now the women of the village can easily fetch water from the water pump set up as a result of the collective effort.

This incident reinforces the fact that women have to come forward; otherwise change is not possible. ‘We have to raise our voice. We have to demand our rights, otherwise nobody will listen to us.’ said Savita.

Meera Devi, a resident of Bagan Gram Panchayat, has been associated with many developmental works in her village. ‘Women can do anything if they want, but it is so difficult to motivate them to come forward,’ she says.

In summers, there is an acute shortage of water in the village. People, particularly the women, have to face a lot of problems in May, June and July. During the last two years, this area has received a fair amount of rainfall. ‘We could not store the rainwater; due to lack of proper rainwater harvesting structure, most of the water was wasted. The villagers were not aware of rainwater harvesting. Then they came to know about water harvesting technology from DA and Arghyam. Meera Devi participated in a programme aimed at training people about rainwater harvesting. She motivated a large number of households to construct rainwater harvesting structures. Now they are able to store rainwater. ‘We can use rainwater to irrigate our fields in the months of summer, when water is scarce. Now people can grow more than one crop in a year,’ Meera Devi proudly signs off.

Meera Devi is not a one-off example. Women, especially in backward rural areas, are coming to the fore by motivating fellow villagers to stand in unison so that, collectively, they can play a substantial role in solving the age-old problems that the villages have been facing. q

Nibedita Phukan
nphukan@devalt.org