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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | In dry Kerala region, families survive on 10-15 buckets of water a week -Shaju Philip

In dry Kerala region, families survive on 10-15 buckets of water a week -Shaju Philip

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published Published on May 9, 2017   modified Modified on May 9, 2017
-The Indian Express

Drought for 2nd straight year leaves tribals of Attapaddy at lenders’ mercy, hits pregnant women’s health

Attappady:
At the sun-baked village of Nallasinka in Attappady, a frail woman is desperately scanning a pipeline that takes water to a private estate, looking for a leak that was once there. “It is five days since water reached our colony. Last week, we survived by collecting water that leaked out of this pipeline. Now, the owner seemed to have sealed the leaks,” says Lakshmi Rangan.

The pipeline unyielding, Lakshmi and other women in her colony will have to wait for a few buckets supplied by tankers from downtown Mannarkkad, 50 km away.

Tribal-populated Attappady region in Kerala’s Palakkad district, which had hit headlines for the death of malnourished babies in 2013, is reeling under drought this year.

According to the Met department, while rainfall was 34 per cent deficient in Kerala during the southwest monsoon last year, it was 66 per cent in Attappady. It led to drought for a second consecutive year in Attapady; the rainfall deficit had been over 60 in the 2015 monsoon too. Besides, Attappady is yet to get the summer showers that have brought relief elsewhere in Kerala.

The government-sponsored water supply system at tribal colonies depends on bore-wells and wells dug in riverbeds. The rivers Bhavani and Shiruvani, however, have almost dried up. And in the nearby Silent Valley National Park, the streams that were another source of water are now trickles.

Tilaka Nagaraj, a tribal woman at Keeripathi colony, says many families are borrowing from moneylenders to buy drinking water from private suppliers. “We get 40 to 50 litres for Rs 150. I have taken Rs 1,000 from a moneylender at an interest of Rs 250 per month. I have used up that money on drinking water over the last two weeks,’’ she says.

At Karara and Gudayoor colonies in Agali village, tribals pay Rs 250 for 500 litres. “Nobody is sure when water will be supplied, if at all the government sends tankers. At the colonies, elders are waiting to collect water in pots skipping their daily work. This will also push us to utter poverty,” says tribal activist K A Ramu.

According to sources at Tribal Specialty Hospital at Attappady, scarcity of drinking water has taken a toll on the health of pregnant women in remote colonies. Of the three intrauterine foetal deaths reported in the region this year, two resulted out of want of enough amniotic fluid, they say. “When we analysed an intrauterine foetal death last week, we found that the mother did not have enough water at her colony (Boothayar) to drink. She had to walk one kilometre to get water,’’ says an official.

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The Indian Express, 9 May, 2017, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/in-dry-kerala-region-families-survive-on-10-15-buckets-of-water-a-week-4646858/


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