Mission Bhagiratha brightens up lives of adivasis in remote hamlets

Rallapuram is the first Guthikoya tribal habitation in the State to get piped drinking water

Kothagudem: Residents of Rallapuram, a Guthikoya tribal habitation tucked away in the remote forests of Cherla mandal in Bhadradri Kothagudem district, are a happy lot.

The reason for their happiness is that they now have access to round the clock supply of safe and clean drinking water, a luxury of sorts they never thought of enjoying in their lifetime. It is said to be the first adivasi hamlet in the State getting tapped water.

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Each of the 65 households in the habitation are fitted with tap connections, courtesy the State government’s massive flagship project, Mission Bhagiratha, being implemented with an outlay of Rs 45,028 crores.

Rallapuram, located just four km away from Chhattisgarh border, is home to Guthikoyas, who migrated from that State to Telangana about 30 years ago. Since then, they have been depending on local forest streams for drinking water.

Despite its remote location, the habitation was covered under the project as the State government wants to ensure safe and sustainable piped drinking water supply to all villages on saturation mode, Rural Water Supply (RWS) programme Deputy Executive Engineer, N Srinivas told Telangana Today.

New approach with solar power

The officials adopted a new approach instead of connecting the hamlet with the secondary pipeline network as is usually done. A solar powered water supply system has been set up connecting all the households with a local pipeline network and an overhead tank and two borewells.

“We faced difficulties in getting clearance for laying the secondary pipeline network to the village as it is located in the reserve forest area. Hence, we installed a 2,700 watt solar power plant to run 3 HP capacity electric motor to draw water from the bore wells,” Srinivas informed Telangana Today.

The entire system is automatic. As soon as the tank is empty, the motor starts running and stops after the tank is full and thus the water is supplied round the clock. Tests have been conducted to ensure the quality of groundwater meets prescribed standards.

Tests such as total dissolved solids (TDS) to measure the dissolved combined content of all inorganic and organic substances in water, pH (potential of hydrogen) to measure acidic and basic nature of water and others found to be normal, Srinivas explained.

Solar powered water supply system is installed in 16 remote habitations in Cherla mandal. The plants are already installed in six villages- Rallapuram, Timmirigudem, Korukonda, Krantipuram, Kamalapuram and Kandipadu and works are under progress in 10 villages.

Decades-old problem solved

“We used to walk to streams nearly three to four kilometres away from our hamlet to fetch water for our daily needs. Now, we have a tap connection in our house and the quality of the water is very good”, said a resident of Rallapuram, Somidi Podium.

The residents are more than happy as their three-decades-old drinking water problem is solved and desire to consume clean and safe water is fulfilled, felt Koram Kanna Rao, the sarpanch of Tippapuram Gram Panchayat under whose limits Rallapuram hamlet comes.

 

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