Taking charge for water

A young sarpanch in Maharashtra helps his village residents avail drinking water at home 

- DAKSHIANI PALICHA

A DECADE AGO, the women of Hiwardhara village were always on foot, recalls Mahendra Kinake. With containers in hand, they would either walk to the few handpumps in the village, or if these were too crowded, they would go farther to waterbodies to collect drinking water for their households. Once home, they would rush to the fields to tend to crops along with their other family members. "Such was the scarcity of drinking water in the village, that households would spend most their days only arranging for it," says Kinake, the sarpanch of the Hiwardhara gram panchayat, which comprises his village and two others in Yavatmal district of Maharashtra.