No water, no bride: Village faces nuptial crisis amid severe water shortage
Nabarangpur: A severe and long-standing drinking water crisis has led to an unusual and alarming social fallout in Badabarli village, under Sanabarli panchayat of Papadahandi block in Nabarangpur district — more than 80 young men remain unmarried because families refuse to marry their daughters into a village with no reliable access to drinking water.
Despite the launch of a mega drinking water project nearly two years ago, which included the construction of a water tank and pipeline installation, the village’s 1,000-plus residents are still waiting for piped water. With no access to a consistent water supply, villagers are forced to walk over 1.5 km daily to fetch water.
Badabarli, surrounded by hills, has basic infrastructure like roads and electricity, but continues to suffer from a severe shortage of potable water. Of the three tube wells once installed by the administration, including one on a school campus, only one remains partially functional, yielding barely enough to meet demand. The others have fallen into disrepair.
Women often trek to a natural spring more than a kilometre away late at night to fetch water. A decade ago, after similar complaints surfaced, local officials built a water collection tank and laid pipes from the spring, which lies about 30 feet below ground level. They also constructed 35 steps and added two pipes at the rock outlet to ease water access. But this measure has not been enough to meet the village’s growing needs.
For bathing, sanitation, and even funeral rites, villagers must travel nearly 2 km to reach nearby ponds in Sanabarli or Nuaguda. Repeated appeals to block and district administrations have yielded little response, villagers say.
“The situation is so bad that many women who married into the village eventually returned to their parental homes,” said Paramananda Nag, a local resident. “They just couldn’t bear the hardship.”
Raesingh Nayak shared that his wife left him and their eight-month-old son because of the dire conditions. He had married a woman from a nearby village, but she left after being unable to endure life in Badabarli.
Sameer Harijan and other villagers have now warned of a potential agitation if the issue isn’t resolved soon.
Prateek Kumar Rout, executive engineer at the district’s Rural Water Supply and Sanitation (RWSS) department, acknowledged that Badabarli falls within a red zone for water scarcity. He said the delay in supplying water is due to pending clearance from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for pipeline laying, which has stalled the mega water project.
“The issue is being addressed, and we expect the water crisis to be resolved by June,” Rout said, adding that water tankers will be deployed during the dry season as a temporary relief measure.
But for the 218 households of Badabarli, each passing day without water deepens the crisis, not just of survival, but of hopes, marriages, and futures lost to a tap that never turns.
PNN
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