Left in lurch, they pine for bijli-paani

Chandigarh : Contaminated water, erratic power supply and lack of sewerage continue to be the bane of border area residents. Dala village, 10 km from the wire fencing in Gurdaspur district, is symptomatic of villages near the Zero Line. Notwithstanding tall claims by the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL), supply is erratic that has a cascading effect on basic utilities such as drinking water.
Villagers spend huge sums on sinking deep bore tubewells and install diesel-operated pumpsets just to get drinking water. “One has to sink a bore well at 300 ft. And even at this depth, we get uncontaminated water. This means an expense in excess of Rs1 lakh,” a villager says.
“People in this belt own small landholdings. They get a bore well dug for Rs20,000 to Rs30,000 at 60 to 70 ft and then install an RO system,” says Harpreet Dala.
The PSPCL claims it supplies uninterrupted power. The connections of waterworks are snapped when panchayats default on their bills, it says. Recently, strong winds uprooted or broke poles. The staff struggled to get things back on track for 48 hours. Villagers have a solution: they want the PSPCL to lay underground cables. Officials, however, claim they do not have the money to do so. Also, pipes from water tank to homes remain broken. Officials find it tedious to repair them in border areas. “The Punjab Rural Water Supply and Sanitation project (Phase-1), financed by the 16th World Bank Mission during the Badal’s rule spent money on improving the water supply mechanism in border villages, but the purpose was defeated by erratic power supply. Unless uninterrupted electricity is given to waterworks, the money will go down the drain,” a department official says.