Sonbhadra, Uttar Pradesh

To contain the spread of the coronavirus, most of us are staying at home, but many have to step out to fetch water every day. Phoolmatiya is one of them. As the hand pump in her village has run dry, she has to step out to fetch water from the nearest water source – that is a river outside her village.

With the advent of summer, people living in villages in the Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh start facing a water crisis. Although there are many hand pumps in the Murta village in Duddhi block, which is nearly 100 kms from the district headquarter, they run dry during summers. This happens every year. People living in the region are forced to fetch water from the nearby river.

Talking about the water crisis Phoolmatiya said: “We face a severe water crisis. It has been four months that the hand pumps here have run dry. Earlier, we would get water from these but now they have stopped functioning. We have no other option but to fetch water from the river, which is outside our village.”

For this, this is their way of life. Both women and children living here have to step out to fetch water from the river daily. There are a few hand pumps outside this village, where women forming long queues keep waiting for their turn to fill their water buckets. People have to pump these hand pumps several times to get water.

Amritlal, who lives in the same village, informed us that there is not a single person in the village who is not suffering the water crisis. “We have informed about these to the secretary and pradhan (head of the village) but we have not got any relief so far. All of us have to go out to wash our clothes in the river water. When we go to use hand pumps, we have to pump those for half-an-hour or so to get water. This has created problems for animals as well.”