Wife abandons man over water crisis in MP village; pipeline work starts after his complaint

The man, Jitendra Soni of Devra village, took his water-induced marital grievance to the district administration during the weekly ‘Jansunwai' (a public outreach programme) on Tuesday

Bhopal: A village in eastern Madhya Pradesh’s Dindori district is hoping for an end to its water woes, courtesy of a woman who refused to put up with the water scarcity and left her husband in protest.

The man, Jitendra Soni of Devra village, took his water-induced marital grievance to the district administration during the weekly ‘Jansunwai’ (a public outreach programme) on Tuesday.

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Acting on Soni’s complaint, the Dindori collector directed officials from the Public Health Engineering (PHE) department to resolve the water shortage in Devra, located just 3 km from the district headquarters.

The tribal-dominated Dindori district, bordering Chhattisgarh, is located about 460 km from the MP capital Bhopal.

Soni told PTI, “My wife has abandoned me due to the water crisis in my village. She went to her parents’ house along with our children. I shared my plight with the district collector. The PHE department has been directed to take steps to arrange water in the village.” Soni said he tried to persuade his wife Laxmi to stay back, but she didn’t listen.

“I told her that our children’s studies would get affected, but she said there is no future in the village due to the water crisis,” he said.

Soni claimed that several other women from his village are ready to leave due to water scarcity.

“There are several families that are not speaking up out of fear of infamy and have moved out of the village silently. But I am an unemployed labourer and there is no scope of arranging water on my own,” he claimed.

Soni said their village has a handpump and 2,000-2,500 residents are dependent on it. “There is a huge crowd at the handpump from morning till night. People hardly get any water from there,” he said.

PHE official Afzal Amanullah told PTI that they have started work to resolve the issue.

“The village has a borewell that was dug under the ‘Nal, Jal’ scheme, but the water level has dropped, and people are not getting adequate water in Devra village. The villagers have demanded that they be provided water connections from the overhead tank in a neighbouring village,” he said.

Amanullah said that the work of connecting the old pipeline in Devra with the overhead tank is being carried out on Wednesday. “We are going to start the water supply through the overhead tank,” he said.

He said the work to provide tap water to Devra, Hans Nagar and Saket Nagar was earlier sanctioned under the ‘Jal Jeevan’ Mission. Accordingly, the overhead tank was constructed in Hans Nagar.

After connecting the existing pipeline network in Devra to the overhead tank, Soni and other villagers will have better access to water, he said. The PHE is trying to connect all the areas of the village through water supply lines, Amanullah added.