Telangana: Sarampet’s infamous hand pumpsets go defunct, thanks to Mission Bhagiratha

Sarampet was where the highest fluoride content of 7.6 ppm in the groundwater was reported.

Nalgonda: A painful reminder of the days when the district reeled under the fluorosis menace, 12 hand pump-sets in Sarampet village of Marriguda mandal, defunct with shrubs growing all over and around them, now tell the story of how one single water supply scheme changed life for the people of the village.

Sarampet was where the highest fluoride content of 7.6 ppm in the groundwater was reported. In 2014, and before that too, it were these 12 bore-well hand pump sets that the entire village depended upon for drinking water. With the fluoride content being abnormally high, the 500 odd households in the village had over 100 fluorosis victims.

And then, Telangana was formed. And Mission Bhagiratha happened. In the last four to five years, there have been no new fluorosis cases in the village, with the hand pump-sets turning defunct after the villagers began getting drinking water directly to their homes as part of Mission Bhagiratha.

Speaking to Telangana Today, a villager, Ravula Srinivas, said every house in the village was now being supplyied safe drinking water under Mission Bhagiratha. A 70-year-old open well, which also was an old source for water for the village, was closed four years ago. A bore-well, used by the Grama Panchayat to supply water in the village through a pump set and pipe line, was also shut down four years ago, he added.

Nakka Sugunamma said her home was getting drinking water from 6 am to 8 am everyday under Mission Bhagiratha.
“We now don’t have to use fluoride contaminated water for drinking and cooking purposes. The village is free from the fluoride threat like many other villages in Marriguda mandal,” she added.

Ravula Ravi said the closing of the open well and all the bore-wells in the village was a testimony to the success of Mission Bhagiratha.