A white elephant called Shankhodih Water Tower

Mail News Service

Jamshedpur, Nov 22: The Shankhodih water tower built at a cost of lakhs of rupees was a part of the government’s ambitious ‘Ghar-Ghar-Nal-Jal’ project that started with gusto two years earlier in a hamlet of 65 BPL families residing in Ruam area of Jadugoda. But the projected was jolted to a halt due to technical snags 10 months ago and the denizens are resigned to fetching water from sources 1.5 kilometers away. The hand pumps or tube wells are nonfunctional and crying for repairs while the wells in this Ruam village of Shankhodih hold everything else but water. The ambitious project is as good as slumbering as of now while the Shankhodih villagers continue their war for water from distant and tiring sources. For such people thirst is a costly luxury that the government departments concerned have made it out to be. The villagers have appealed to the officials concerned uncountable times to get the ‘Ghar-Ghar-Nal-Jal’ project back on tracks but these men are slumbering over the appeals of the parched denizens of Shankhodih. BJP leaders Vikram Singh, Litta Murmu and Ravindra Nath Murmu have demanded of the Jharkhand government to get the water tower started so that the people may be able to overcome the drinking water paucity failing which they wil be compelled to start an agitation until the project is made to see the light of day.