Kenchanapalya is a small village in Ramanagara District in Karnataka. The villagers of Kenchanapalya in Ramanagara District have had no access to drinking water for the past year. They have to travel to Gollahalli village, 2 kilometres away to fetch RO purified drinking water. The bore well is Kenchanapalya has been damaged for the past year and no action has taken place to repair it. The residents have urged the Gram Panchayat to deal with the issue but claim to have got no feedback.
People are forced to use rain water for their household chores. They also use big storage tanks which contains water for household purposes. All the residents have conveyance issues. It takes around 30 minutes for the villagers to travel to Gollahalli to fetch water. The groundwater resources have been choked being one of the reasons for scarcity. The bore well is damaged and no actions have been taken place to look after the scenario.
Jayashankar, resident of the village, says,”It becomes difficult to travel everyday to fetch drinking water due to buses not being available. The land has been allotted for the RO plant, but till now the machinery has not been set up due to a lack of funds.”
The Ex- chairman of the Kenchanapalya village said, “The government body is not taking any initiative to provide drinking water. I looked after the basic facilities required by the households when I was in power.”
Rural areas face drinking water scarcity because surface water sources are exhausted, due to the depletion of water sheds. People in rural areas are highly dependent on groundwater which is contaminated by organic and inorganic sources, said by Professor Krishnaraaj.
The villagers have requested the Panchayat to find a possible solution for it because drinking water is a necessity for all.
