Bhopal Zila Panchayat officials launch hunger strike
| Date :25-Apr-2025 |
Staff Reporter
Stepping up their protest against the highly sluggish progress of works on vital rural drinking water schemes, Bhopal Zila Panchayat Vice-President Mohan Singh Jat and some members of Zila Panchayat started an indefinite hunger strike at the campus of Zila Panchayat office the day after Panchayati Raj Diwas. Mohan Singh Jat, leader of the hunger strikers, spoke of his serious concern over the severe shortage of water that is impacting the rural areas of Bhopal district. He charged Government officials and contractors of a huge corruption racket and that they are paralysing the very core of these key water supply schemes.
“The water crisis in our villages has taken alarming dimensions,” claimed Jat. “While Chief Minister’s ambitious Jal Samvardhan Abhiyan is underway from March 30 to June 30, the ground reality is otherwise. Due to corruption by officials and contractors, these schemes are going waste,” he alleged.
They are joined by other concerned members of the Zila Panchayat like Vinay Singh Mehar and a few others. Collectively, their move underlines the growing frustration among local representatives with the Public Health Engineering (PHE) Department’s apparent failure to address the growing water crisis in rural Bhopal.
The Zila Panchayat members presented an entire array of issues that lead to the dearth of water. These are frequent power outages on water supply, non-functional water pumps (DPs), absent taps on water connections, and a drastic fall in groundwater levels in the majority of villages. Therefore, villagers, especially women, have to walk long distances to obtain water for their household purposes.
This drastic step follows after a previous warning had been raised during a Zila Panchayat meeting when the issue of incomplete ‘Nal-Jal’ (tap water) schemes had been forcefully raised.
Despite the warnings issued by the elected representatives, the PHE department is said to have failed to take adequate action. Due to inaction, Jat had formally intimated the Collector, Kaushalendra Vikram Singh, four days ago regarding the proposed hunger strike. The public show of strength by the elected
members has apparently moved the concerned authorities into action.
According to reports, officials were involved in attempts to convince the agitating members to suspend their hunger strike late last evening. Following Jat’s letter to the Collector, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Zila Panchayat, Ila Tiwari has taken cognizance of the matter, as reported. She has directed the PHE Department to submit a detailed report on the position of the ‘Nal-Jal’ schemes within three days. Further, teams of PHE and Janpad Panchayats engineers, secretaries, and Rojgar Sahayaks have been formed to inspect and investigate the approved, transferred, trial-run, and running ‘Nal-Jal’ projects of the Fanda and Berasia Janpad Panchayats. These teams are said to keep all members of the Zila Panchayat in the loop during inspection, and the investigation report is to be submitted today itself. Jat, in his letter to the Collector, also raised the issue that on the March 27, at the general assembly meeting, department officials were assigned a 15-day time limit for the completion of the outstanding ‘Nal-Jal’ schemes of the Jal Jeevan Mission. Nevertheless, even though the deadline fell on the 23rd of April, no report has been received, and the issue of drinking water in villages remains unabated.
The Zila Panchayat members have mentioned a long chain of villages in which the inhabitants are already experiencing severe water shortages. They are Khajuri, Gunga, Kanera, Shahpura, Devpura, Golkhedi, Kothar, Chanderi, Dupadia, Kalapipal, Bagapura, Tara Sevenia, Acharpura, Kararia, Semrikhurd, Khitwas, Chachahedi, Gondipura, Parwaliya, Barelakheda, Laharpura, and some more.
The indefinite hunger strike is an indication of the necessity for prompt and effective action to resolve the acute drinking water issue in the rural pockets of the district and to ensure that the ‘Nal-Jal’ schemes are implemented successfully. Whether their protest will prove to be fruitful and administration will takefollow-up action remains to be seen.
