The agitated residents of Raghunathpura village carried earthen pots or ‘Matka’ in their hands and broke them outside the collectorate campus to demonstrate their protest against shortage of drinking water. They complained of lack of piped water in the area forcing them to survive on tube well water which they claim is slurry laced.

“We have been suffering for more than a year, no one is there to listen to our grievances,” said Jamna Bai, one of the protestors.

Raghunathpura is a village situated in Badgaon with a population of more than 3,000 residents. Not even a single house has been granted water connection here and the residents draw water from the tube wells and hand pumps dug under the Panghat Yojna. However, water pollution has become a menace for them as the water sources are said to have been contaminated with marble slurry that is dumped nearby.

Resident Chunki Bai says, “After the monsoon the water from tube wells and hand pumps turns hard and slurry mixed. If you leave the water overnight in ‘matka’, next morning a white powdered layer forms at the bottom making it unfit for usage.”

“In the past 20 days, 7 people have reported of kidney stone problem which is a big issue. We met the PHED officers who assured to carry out water sampling in six days but it has been 2 months and no one came,” complained Mangi Bai.

According to the protestors, they have suffered long enough and seek collector’s response now over the matter of basic drinking water. They also said that the closest source of pipe line connections in Kali Magri at Chitrakoot Nagar, which is 2.5 Km away and practically impossible for the women to fetch water daily.