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Jaswant Singh?s native village faces water crisis
Residents of Jasol village in Barmer district have asked politicians to solve the water problem before they cast their votes, writes AP Gaur.
Residents of Jasol village in Barmer district have decided to ask politicians to present a concrete solution to the water problem before they cast their votes.
Jasol was once a thikana (feudal state) of 72 villages, and the word is part of the name of Union Finance Minister Jaswant Singh Jasol. For the last few decades, villagers at the native place of the finance minister are facing the problem of polluted water.
“We are not declaring boycott of the coming elections, but just want politicians to come and see our condition,” said Safi Mohammad, a shopkeeper on Nakoda Road in Jasol. He said villagers had hopes from Singh but till now the problem persists. They get water once a fortnight.
“We don’t think public representatives are aware of our problem. Whenever they visit our village, they bring bottles of mineral water with them. I think they should once drink the water supplied here,” said Subhan Khan, another villager. He said the water supply department is not serious about the filtration of the water.
Babu Singh, a tea stall owner at the Jasol bus stand, said the problem is caused by the hundreds of the textile units which discharge effluents into the Luni River flowing near the village. “Though this year the monsoon was normal in the region, we can’t harvest a normal crop. Yeh zameen zahreeli ho chuki hai (pollution has poisoned the land),” Babu added.
Villagers said there was a plan to provide water supply from the nearby Bithuja village. A pipeline was laid but supply of water was not started. The village comes under Pachpadra constituency.
MLA Amra Ram Choudhary while talking to the Hindustan Times accepted that water crisis is the major issue for Jasol.
“Actually the ground water quality is not quite good in nearby villages. There was a plan to connect Jasol with Bithuja by laying pipeline. But now experts are saying that the water of Bithuja too is saline,” said Choudhary. Khuda Bux, 80, says that they had met all concerned persons in the government offices and requested them to provide regular water supply. “But nobody bothered to hear our problems.” The politicians visit the village just before the elections and request for votes.
Later, the project proposal for bridging critical gaps in infrastructure at the Jasol, Balotra and Bithuja belt of Barmer district in Rajasthan was put up by the Tata Energy Resources Institute (TERI). “Success of any government project depends upon public participation in the implementation. The problem of polluted water at Balotra and Jasol should be solved by involving local people at every stage,” said Rajendra Singh, the TBS founder.
