Children Skip School to be Lowered into Wells to Fetch Water

Mangalore Today News Network

Maharashtra, Dec 31, 2014:  Maharashtra’s Beed district, reeling from severe water shortage, has adopted a risky practice to get water.

 

Every day, in many areas of the district, children are tied with ropes and lowered deep into wells to get water - where pitchers can’t reach on their own. This highly dangerous method of fetching water has been followed for nearly three years.

Beed is the constituency of Maharashtra’s Rural Development Minister Pankaja Munde.

The children have to miss out on school to accompany their parents and get drinking water.

"The situation is quite bad. Our parents don’t let us go to school. We have to get water from far away... daily we have to enter the well to take out water," said a child.

As most wells reportedly have water only for two to three months a year, and no other source of drinking water nearby, many people are forced to arrange water by sending their children into far off wells.

Even then, the water is insufficient.

 

Courtesy: NDTV