HYDERABAD: There are long queues of women, men, and children at water facilities (wells) in the desert villages, waiting to get their turn to fetch water for domestic use, while similar lines can be seen of animals, mainly donkeys, carrying water in heavy leather bags to their destinations beyond the sand dunes.
Tenu Mal, a community activist from Mithi, Tharparkar district wanted the government to “initiate effective planning to at least remove the burden from women and animals”.
Because women carry water utensils and earthen jars, travel long distance to fetch water from wells twice or thrice a day for domestic use as well as for cattle heads.
Mal said since the underground water level had been disrupted due to climate change and unusual rainfall mechanism, the water in wells has either become unfit for human and animal consumption or it takes some time to recharge again and again daily after filling few jars.
“Anyway, the people of Thar desert throng the sources to get water to quench thirst at the time when the entire world nations are fighting the global pandemic coronavirus, strictly advising people to stay home under lockdown,” he said.
Mal has been associated with a local non-government organisation (NGO) and has been closely observing the issues facing the people living along the sand dunes.
Currently, he said people of Tharparkar district were experiencing the worst kind of water scarcity as wells had either turned brackish or short of water to meet the needs of communities and livestock.
Water levels of some wells drops down instantly after filling some vessels and rises to normal levels after a while, forcing people to wait for hours.
“In fact, diesel motors quickly pull long ropes to draw water, the facility could not remove the burden from women and animals. Unfortunately, the women have to bear the same burden from the facility to their homes.
The government and non-government organisations (NGOs) have introduced different models to provide water to the Thar desert communities, which include traditional wells, tankas (storages for saving rain water at homes), installing diesel motors at some places (replacing animals with motors to pull ropes), launching RO (reverse osmosis) plants, installing tube wells to draw water from third layer underground water and solar-powered pipeline mechanism at wells.
Ali Akbar Rahimo of AWARE (Association for Water, Applied Education & Renewable Energy), who has launched around 100 solar-powered pipeline at wells in Thar and Achhro Tar (white desert) said,” There is need of collaboration of the public and private sector organisations, working on the same water issue”.
“The mechanism is deeply lacking to work on resource mapping in Thar in terms of water availability and how to utilise it.
He claims to have a successful model of installing 100 solar-powered pipelines at wells with meters, which provide water to all village people and they have to contribute for the water they use. But, he said, there was a need for replicating it with further sources to see how it could be beneficial to the desert people.
He said Thar people had also witnessed the launch of different projects of five water pipelines from irrigation canals during successive governments, but there was nothing visible on ground.
In this situation, he proposed to form Thar water board to improve coordination within all stakeholders, initiate resource mapping, and launch effective mechanism to resolve water issue in Thar.
Muhammad Siddiq, associated with leading Rural Development Association (RDA), also working for the water facilities with local communities, said, “Usually rainfalls in June and July always replenish the underground water levels and people store water at their storages, but it seems the people might have not stored sufficient water, which they use for whole the year”.
“They are facing water scarcity, which may continue till May, June and July 15, 2020, depending on fresh monsoon rains status.”
Siddiq said Sindh government had spent Rs7 billion to install 700 RO plants in different areas, aiming to provide water to all people. But, presently hardly 50 or 60 RO plants can be seen functional, while the rest were nonoperational. “These RO plants have the capacity to draw water from 700—800 feet and purify it, but after a few months of installation the people started crying against the project that failed to benefit them.”
The reason behind it was that the community people were unaware to maintain it as per need, he said.
Talking about the routine migration from Thar to barrage areas, he said, “It is not only the vegetation loss or degradation of rangelands —underground water reservoirs themselves have also been disturbed, compelling the communities to take livestock to migrate to barrage areas every year for their survival.
It is a traditional cycle that the herders migrate to barrage areas, stay there for harvesting wheat, pealing sugarcane and find other work to earn little for sustainability. They return back with grains and money with safe animals while hearing the news of raining in their native areas.
Siddiq said the huge investment of Rs7 billion on 700 RO plants was enough for providing canal water to each village through pipelines, but it failed because of a sheer lack of political will, causing losses to government and forcing the people to face thirst.
Pirbhu Satiani, a development expert, from Mithi, said earlier each family had their own wells at homes and they would get water, whenever needed. Besides this, each family had 3-4 tankas (traditional reservoir) at homes, where they stored rainwater for the whole the year for domestic use as well as livestock, Satiani said. “Anyway, at present the water is not much enough at storage or in wells for human and livestock population,” he said
The activists believe that there is different demography of areas in terms of capacity of recharging underground water, ranging from 50ft to 300-400ft, varying areas.
“Presently, based upon the lessons learnt from a longtime practice of introducing water models, there are risks involved in investing on digging wells or installing RO plants, because water level is changing rapidly in the desert areas,” Satiatni said.
Earlier, some experts designed a comprehensive feasibility report to develop Thar Wah (canal) to provide water to entire desert villages from famous Nau Kot in 1985. Initial experiments showed there was misunderstanding within experts and the project was discarded, later. But then, the activists said another pipeline project was launched to bring water to Islam Kot town to benefit Thar coal project. The pipeline crosses through different areas, but nobody is allowed to take water from this pipeline.
Similarly, a similar project was launched eight years back to provide water through pipeline from irrigation water canal to Keetar village. But the project seems to be in doldrums because of internal politics.
The activists believe despite initiating mega development projects in Tharparkar, the village people are still being deprived of their share of what they have lost in terms of drinking water.
Canal water can be effective source to resolve the issue through laying down pipelines to towns and villages. If it is not feasible, the community activists suggest introducing solar-powered water pipelines to provide water to all homes in the villages.
