Severe Drought is Grasping the Country:Armed Guards to Protect India’s Dam
According to the Indian Government official report a total of 330 million people i.e. about a quarter of the total population are suffering from severe water crisis as there is no monsoon from the past two weeks in the villages of Madhya Pradesh. Thus worst drought has already started grasping the villages in and around Tikamgarh district.
In this drought situation the withering sun rays of afternoon has become intolerable for the people; young people are jumping into some muddy water reservoirs to protect themselves from the scorching heat of this summer. But the government in order to protect the remaining water bodies has appointed armed guards around the reservoirs mainly the dams. Moreover as some of the bold and thirsty farmers are trying to steal water from the Barighat dam; therefore compelling the central Madhya Pradesh government authorities to put armed security guards around the dams for vigilance.Purshotam Sirohi, an armed guard, reported that water is priceless for this area and they are protecting it all the time.
But the securities are unable to prevent the drought to grasp the reservoirs as per the local officials report the reservoir can hold water just for one month. Already water has disappeared from the four reservoirs in central Madhya Pradesh leaving the huge population in scarcity of water. Now in these regions the municipal authorities are providing waters through water tankers. In the areas around Tikamgarh district, about 100,000 residents are supplied with two hour of piped water in every fourth day and so the authorities are now commanding to dig new bore wells in this area. But this will also not be able to meet the demands as the officials have already examined and said that the underground water level has fallen to about 100 feet in the last few years due to scarce annual rainfall in this area.Tikamgarh municipality chairwoman, Laxmi Giri Goswami said that they are praying to Rain God for blessings.
As the temperature is fluttering around 45°C, therefore villagers around Dargai Khurd have only 17 wells left with little water and it has been calculated that about 850 of them will die of thirst as there is inadequate supply of water.
As the irrigation system is not so well in India so the farmers across the country have to depend on the four months monsoon starting from June to cultivate their crops. But this water crisis throughout the country due to two weeks monsoon have lessen the amount of crops grown in 10 states and are also forcing the authorities to take some measures in this situation like supplying of water through trucks and trains to most affected regions.
So now farmers are migrating to the nearby towns and villages in order to support their families. For construction jobs people mainly arrives in the cities between January-February but this year people are coming in March and April as they not getting anything to eat or drink in the villages.Like other farmers of Bangaye village of Madhya Pradesh, Gassiram Meharwal struggled a lot but ultimately failed after losing huge amount of crops in this year and now is moving to Gwalior for work.
In north Mumbai, one of the worst-affected region migrant families are standing in queue to fill water in their plastic vessels and are staying in small areas called camps made of tarpaulin sheets and logs.Sudhir Rane, a volunteer of the migrant camp in Mumbai’s Ghatkopar suburb said that there are about 300-350 families with more than 1,000 people staying in these camp.
