Har Ghar Jal Fails Uttar Pradesh’s Kelhariya: Will Water Reach This Neglected Village?
Kunti Devi, 65, who lives in the remote village of Kelhariya in Uttar Pradesh, is thirsty. She stands near a crack or a pass in the hills, called chuaad in Hindi, about 500 metres to the east of the village. A thin stream of water, seeping through the mountain pass, fills a small pit. The water lasts for a few months each year, and the chuaad is the village’s only source of water. Kunti waits patiently for her turn to quench her thirst.
As the water trickles down, humans and animals queue up for a drink. During the day, it is cows and buffaloes, and at night, it is wild animals such as bears, deer, langurs, foxes, and rabbits. “We go to the chuaad every day. We drink and bathe there. In summer, when the chuaad dries up, we have no water,” Kunti Devi says, her eyes welling up.
Kelhariya village is located in Naugarh block of Chandauli district; one of the last villages in the block, it is nestled between the Vindhya mountains and dense evergreen forests. A single Jio phone tower and some dry bunds are the face of development here. Most families depend on farming and livestock or work as daily labourers. Some, like Aarti and Rajesh, have found other ways. Aarti, 30, who has never gone to school, spends her days boiling milk to make khoya, and her husband, Rajesh, goes to the Naugarh market each morning to sell it.
Failed attempts to coax out the ground water
There are two hand pumps in Kelhariya, but they are showpieces that do not produce any water. When the chuaad dries up in February-March, most of the villagers migrate with their women, children, and livestock to the Musakhand Dam or to the banks of the Karmanasa river on the foothills of the Vindhyas. There, they set up makeshift shelters and wait for the rains. When the chuaad fills up again, they return to the village. This cycle repeats every year.
“A few years ago, the government brought in a machine to cut the hard stone and install hand pumps. The boring failed. Since then, no further attempts have been made. The government promised to bring water to the village under the Har Ghar Jal scheme, but three years have passed, and not a drop has reached us,” says Kunti Devi.
The women and children of Kelhariya trek to the chuaad several times a day. Naurangi Devi, 60, says: “I go for water 8 to 10 times a day. My knees hurt, but if I don’t fetch water, how will our children survive? For us, illness or rest has no meaning because if we don’t get water, our children will die of hunger and thirst.” Sometimes the water is clean, sometimes it is muddy. “We are poor people. We do daily labour whenever we get work. How do we know whether the Modi-Yogi government has done something or not? When we feel thirsty, we run to the chuaad; sometimes a tanker comes and we queue up with our pots,” she says.
Phulwanti Devi, 60, is a widow with two sons, Santosh and Chhotelal, who leave home each day in search of work, leaving the responsibility for fetching water solely on their mother. “We use water sparingly, like oil in cooking,” she says. “The money we earn is spent first on water, not food. For now, the chuaad has water. In a few days, we will queue up for the tanker that comes every two or three days.” Sometimes, during summers, the villagers even have to wait for four days for the tanker to come.
Also Read | Rural India is choking
Chandramohan Kol, 22, says: “Politicians come during elections, promise water, win our votes, and never come back. Whenever any leader or officer visits our village, all of us demand only one thing: solve our water problem. Kelhariya’s people are forced to vote, but no one listens to them.”
How women bear the brunt
Kelhariya’s water scarcity is so notorious that people of the region do not marry their daughters to men from the village. They know that their women will have to spend all day fetching water. We meet Chandramohan while he is herding goats. He was enrolled in the primary school in Pandi but dropped out because of the fear of wild bears. “It takes hours to fill a bucket from the water that seeps through the chuaad,” he says. “Our women spend the entire day fetching water.”
This dirt track is the main pathway in Kelhariya, which has been left untouched by development.
| Photo Credit:
VIJAY VINEET
The problem is not new; generations of villagers have not seen flowing water. No streams flow in this region. Kelhariya’s Gram Pradhan, Lal Saheb Kharwar, got water cards issued in 2022 for all the villagers, and each person is supposed to get 45 litres of water per tanker trip, which is to last three days, that is, 15 litres a day. Kelhariya’s residents, however, have had enough of the system. “Since Independence, no government has resolved our water problem. It has been there since the time of our ancestors. It’s not just Kelhariya, the entire Naugarh area suffers from this crisis,” one of them says.
There is a well, but its water is polluted. Despite boring to a depth of 350-400 feet, efforts to establish a hand pump failed. In the north of the village, near a huge peepal tree, there is a bore hole that goes 400 ft deep, a testimony to one of the failed attempts to strike water.
Preeti, who has passed class XII and is the most educated woman in Kelhariya, suggests a solution: “If we drill up to 900-1,000 ft, we might get water for a year. We have asked the government to conduct deep-bore drilling here. Once water is available, half our problems will be solved,” she says.
Another resident suggests the same thing: “All the bore wells failed. Maybe a 1,000-foot-deep bore well will yield water, but we don’t have that kind of money. If the government arranges deep boring, our daily fight could end.”
Bypassed by development, Kelhariya is caught in a time warp
Kelhariya village, which is part of Deori revenue village, is about 130 km from Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency, and only 80 km from the district headquarters of Chandauli. It lacks even basic facilities. There are no roads, schools, anganwadi centres, or hospitals. No doctor has ever set foot here, and no treatment is possible without going to Naugarh. There is only one room made of brick and mortar; all other dwellings are mud huts. A decade ago, electricity reached the village, and a Jio tower was installed a few years ago.
The water scarcity in Kelhariya is so notorious that people of the region do not marry their daughters to men from the village. They know their women will have to spend all day fetching water.
| Photo Credit:
VIJAY VINEET
Reaching Kelhariya is a unique experience. The road to the Naugarh Dam in Chandauli, marked by serpentine bends, passes through dense and enchanting forests. It ends suddenly, and a rocky trail emerges out of the forest. After walking half a kilometre on the trail, a small dry dam appears. Ahead, you see the village of Kelhariya with its thatched homes. The water from the Naugarh Dam does not reach Kelhariya. All the water flows away from it and, apart from lift irrigation, there are no other means of irrigation. The village is the picture of a society that has been bypassed by development.
There are no proper roads leading to Kelhariya village. One has to make it to the village through these forests.
| Photo Credit:
VIJAY VINEET
Entering the village feels like stepping outside of time, where life has been put on pause. A man is asleep on a public platform; no other men are visible. Women and children are busy with household chores. An 11-year-old girl named Rinkle is cleaning a thatched shed where her goats are kept. Since there is no school close by, Rinkle cannot study and spends her days herding goats.
Also Read | The Great Nicobar Project: A costly miscalculation?
Rinkle may not know her ABCs, but she is an intelligent girl. When asked why she does not study, she says: “Which teacher will come here?” Indeed, travelling from the block headquarters in Naugarh to Kelhariya and back is nothing short of a punishment, though one teacher does manage to cycle in every day.
Water scarcity is the defining feature of life here. On the dirt tracks, at any time of the day, you see two things: children who should be in school herding goats, and children and women carrying containers of water. Even 3-year-old Shivani, who can barely say her name, carries a small water container to the chuaad.
After the women, it is the children who bear the brunt of the absence of development. The village has 35 children, and many of them often skip lessons to fetch water or give up schooling altogether after a point. In September 2022, Bindu Singh, an activist, arranged for a Kol youth called Virendra Kharwar to teach the children of Kelhariya. Every day, Virendra cycles from Pandi village through rocky, forested paths to Kelhariya, where he teaches 25 children, 11 girls and 14 boys, under a tree. His arrival felt like a miracle to the villagers. Bhola, a resident of the village, says: “Earlier, our children used to go to school in Pandey village, 7 kilometres away, but one day they saw a bear, and after that, they were too scared to go to school. It is a forest path.”
But the children who study with Virendra cannot do so with a free heart. Urmila, who studies with him along with her younger sister, Poonam, says: “Fetching water is more important than studying. If there’s no water, how will we cook?”
Government schemes defeated by water scarcity and rough terrain
Government schemes aimed at improving lifestyles have made no impact in Kelhariya. Toilets were built in the village a decade ago, but these were pointless in the absence of water. Villagers travel 15 kilometres to Deori for rations. Gram Pradhan Lal Saheb Kharwar, says: “The remote ravine area around us is as tangled as our difficulties.” Santosh, a villager, says: “We have heard that the government is planning to run bullet trains. We are only asking our local MLA, Kailash Kharwar, for water to fulfil our basic needs.”
According to Premal Kol, Naugarh’s Block Pramukh, and the former Block Pramukh Suddu Singh, a new well is being constructed in Kelhariya village. According to them, the villagers won’t have to struggle for water this summer.
A well is being dug just outside the Kelhariya village. Residents hope it will solve their water problem.
| Photo Credit:
VIJAY VINEET
The Naugarh Block Development Officer, Amit Kumar, says: “Efforts are being made to solve the water problem. Supplying drinking water through pipelines is feasible here. Water supply by tankers is a very expensive arrangement. We are in discussions with Jal Nigam officials. We are continuously working to ensure that the water pipeline reaches Kelhariya. So far, the plan to supply water to Kelhariya has not taken shape.”
In June 2020, the Uttar Pradesh government launched the Har Ghar Jal scheme and promised to supply piped water to every household in the Naugarh region of Chandauli. The aim was to deliver water to the villages through a 600-kilometre-long pipeline from the Bhaisora Dam. The government approved Rs.250 crore for the purpose, but not a single tap has come here.
Highlights
-
A thin stream coming out of a mountain pass is the only source of water in Kelhariya, a remote village in Chandauli district of Uttar Pradesh, and lasts a few months every year, which forces the residents to migrate to other places in the dry months.
-
Located about 130 km from the Prime Minister’s constituency Varanasi, the village has been bypassed by development with no schools, no roads, no anganwadi centre and no hospital, which makes the lives of the villagers an unending saga of struggle.
-
A well is now being dug, which is expected to solve the water problem in Kelhariya village, and plans are afoot to supply drinking water through pipelines, but as officials point out, the decades-old problem is not going to to solved in a day.
Speaking to this writer in January, Naugarh’s Sub-Divisional Magistrate Kundan Raj Kapoor said: “Efforts are being made by the government. We are planning to lay pipelines within a month or two to start the water supply. We did deep boring in several places, but it failed.” A problem persisting for decades cannot be solved in a single day, he said, adding: “Whether it’s drinking water or water for farming, the government is making every possible effort. We are constructing ponds and small dams in the villages. Slowly, the problem will be resolved.”
While Kelhariya is an extreme example, the entire Naugarh block faces a water crisis through the year. Villages like Kelhariya, Pandi, Saphar, Nonawat, Karmathchua, and Aurawatand, which fall under the Devari Kala Gram Sabha and are home to tribal communities like the Kharwar, Kol, Musahar, and Baiga, struggle for water.
Also Read | Great Nicobar: Disaster in the making
Rajesh Kharwar, a farmer, says: “There are four hand pumps in Pandi village, but only one or two work. During summer, people fetch water from a well located in the fields. Everyone struggles for water. It worsens with summer. The entire village relies on one hand pump. Two new wells are being built; only time will tell if they will yield water during summers or not.” In nearby Saphar, next to Kelhariya, several families have migrated because of the water problem. The Ganpat, Ramsurat, and Chhotelal families, for example, have moved to Harsoti village in Bihar.
An unending saga of struggle, but hope dies hard
Decades ago, because of the water problem in Pandi village, the Musahar community left to settle in Karmathchua village. Now, even Karmathchua’s hand pump has run dry. Lalu, Shankar, Ramlal, and Panna, all residents of the village, say they are forced to venture into the forest in search of water. Forest department officials repeatedly chase them away, but they have no other option but to keep going back.
Chandauli district was once referred to as the “second Kalahandi of Purvanchal”. Two decades ago, villages like Kubradih and Shahpur Jamsot experienced multiple hunger deaths. The region gained attention when Neerja Guleri’s television series Chandrakanta made headlines worldwide.
For decades, dacoits ruled here alongside the government. Infamous dacoits like Mohan Bind, Ghamdi Kharwar, Rambachan, Dharmdev, and Mishri controlled this area. When the dacoits were eliminated, naxalites moved in. There are no dacoits or naxalites in the area now, but the struggles of the tribal community continue.
Kelhariya has about 85-90 residents who belong to the Kol community. The Kol population in Uttar Pradesh numbers over seven lakh. In districts like Chandauli, Mirzapur, Sonbhadra, Chitrakoot, and Banda, the Kol community faces a peculiar discrimination. While they are classified as a Scheduled Tribe in Madhya Pradesh, in Uttar Pradesh they are considered a Scheduled Caste. If two brothers live in the two States, one is considered a tribal person, while the other is considered a Dalit. This creates both discrimination and confusion.
The scenic Chhanpathar falls are located only three miles away from Kelhariya, where the water scarcity is the determining factor in the lives of its residents.
| Photo Credit:
VIJAY VINEET
Ironically, Naugarh is home to two of Uttar Pradesh’s most stunning waterfalls, Rajdari and Devdari, in the Chandraprabha forests. These waterfalls attract a massive influx of tourists during the rainy season. A significant portion of the Chandraprabha Wildlife Sanctuary lies in Naugarh, and the Karmanasha and Chandraprabha rivers flow through the sanctuary.
The senior journalist Rajeev Maurya says: “If the water problem in Naugarh is solved, half its issues can be resolved. For the tribal people here, development is a dream. This is not just a question for the government but for all of us. Don’t the people of Naugarh have the right to live like the rest of the country? Will they always struggle for basic necessities like this? Until these questions are answered, Naugarh will remain a blemish on the picture of development.” The struggle is not just for water but for dignity and for the village’s very existence.
Another senior journalist, Arvind Kharwar, who is from Naugarh, says: “Governments come, announcements are made, schemes are formulated, but the ground reality remains unchanged. Corruption in water-related schemes is so deep-rooted that their benefits never reach the people.” Bhola Kol, a resident of Kelhariya, says: “It is beyond understanding why the tar road coming from Nunawat was stopped in the middle of the forest; taking it up to Kelhariya village is not impossible.”
Despite all this, there is hope yet among the villagers. “We have not given up. Our fight will continue. We will raise our voices even louder,” says Bhola Kol. “Our settlement in the forest has fought many times to protect its existence, and we will continue,” says Rajesh Kol.
Vijay Vineet is a senior independent journalist.
Kunti Devi, 65, who lives in the remote village of Kelhariya in Uttar Pradesh, is thirsty. She stands near a crack or a pass in the hills, called chuaad in Hindi, about 500 metres to the east of the village. A thin stream of water, seeping through the mountain pass, fills a small pit. The water lasts for a few months each year, and the chuaad is the village’s only source of water. Kunti waits patiently for her turn to quench her thirst.
As the water trickles down, humans and animals queue up for a drink. During the day, it is cows and buffaloes, and at night, it is wild animals such as bears, deer, langurs, foxes, and rabbits. “We go to the chuaad every day. We drink and bathe there. In summer, when the chuaad dries up, we have no water,” Kunti Devi says, her eyes welling up.
Kelhariya village is located in Naugarh block of Chandauli district; one of the last villages in the block, it is nestled between the Vindhya mountains and dense evergreen forests. A single Jio phone tower and some dry bunds are the face of development here. Most families depend on farming and livestock or work as daily labourers. Some, like Aarti and Rajesh, have found other ways. Aarti, 30, who has never gone to school, spends her days boiling milk to make khoya, and her husband, Rajesh, goes to the Naugarh market each morning to sell it.
Failed attempts to coax out the ground water
There are two hand pumps in Kelhariya, but they are showpieces that do not produce any water. When the chuaad dries up in February-March, most of the villagers migrate with their women, children, and livestock to the Musakhand Dam or to the banks of the Karmanasa river on the foothills of the Vindhyas. There, they set up makeshift shelters and wait for the rains. When the chuaad fills up again, they return to the village. This cycle repeats every year.
“A few years ago, the government brought in a machine to cut the hard stone and install hand pumps. The boring failed. Since then, no further attempts have been made. The government promised to bring water to the village under the Har Ghar Jal scheme, but three years have passed, and not a drop has reached us,” says Kunti Devi.
The women and children of Kelhariya trek to the chuaad several times a day. Naurangi Devi, 60, says: “I go for water 8 to 10 times a day. My knees hurt, but if I don’t fetch water, how will our children survive? For us, illness or rest has no meaning because if we don’t get water, our children will die of hunger and thirst.” Sometimes the water is clean, sometimes it is muddy. “We are poor people. We do daily labour whenever we get work. How do we know whether the Modi-Yogi government has done something or not? When we feel thirsty, we run to the chuaad; sometimes a tanker comes and we queue up with our pots,” she says.
Phulwanti Devi, 60, is a widow with two sons, Santosh and Chhotelal, who leave home each day in search of work, leaving the responsibility for fetching water solely on their mother. “We use water sparingly, like oil in cooking,” she says. “The money we earn is spent first on water, not food. For now, the chuaad has water. In a few days, we will queue up for the tanker that comes every two or three days.” Sometimes, during summers, the villagers even have to wait for four days for the tanker to come.
Also Read | Rural India is choking
Chandramohan Kol, 22, says: “Politicians come during elections, promise water, win our votes, and never come back. Whenever any leader or officer visits our village, all of us demand only one thing: solve our water problem. Kelhariya’s people are forced to vote, but no one listens to them.”
How women bear the brunt
Kelhariya’s water scarcity is so notorious that people of the region do not marry their daughters to men from the village. They know that their women will have to spend all day fetching water. We meet Chandramohan while he is herding goats. He was enrolled in the primary school in Pandi but dropped out because of the fear of wild bears. “It takes hours to fill a bucket from the water that seeps through the chuaad,” he says. “Our women spend the entire day fetching water.”
This dirt track is the main pathway in Kelhariya, which has been left untouched by development.
| Photo Credit:
VIJAY VINEET
The problem is not new; generations of villagers have not seen flowing water. No streams flow in this region. Kelhariya’s Gram Pradhan, Lal Saheb Kharwar, got water cards issued in 2022 for all the villagers, and each person is supposed to get 45 litres of water per tanker trip, which is to last three days, that is, 15 litres a day. Kelhariya’s residents, however, have had enough of the system. “Since Independence, no government has resolved our water problem. It has been there since the time of our ancestors. It’s not just Kelhariya, the entire Naugarh area suffers from this crisis,” one of them says.
There is a well, but its water is polluted. Despite boring to a depth of 350-400 feet, efforts to establish a hand pump failed. In the north of the village, near a huge peepal tree, there is a bore hole that goes 400 ft deep, a testimony to one of the failed attempts to strike water.
Preeti, who has passed class XII and is the most educated woman in Kelhariya, suggests a solution: “If we drill up to 900-1,000 ft, we might get water for a year. We have asked the government to conduct deep-bore drilling here. Once water is available, half our problems will be solved,” she says.
Another resident suggests the same thing: “All the bore wells failed. Maybe a 1,000-foot-deep bore well will yield water, but we don’t have that kind of money. If the government arranges deep boring, our daily fight could end.”
Bypassed by development, Kelhariya is caught in a time warp
Kelhariya village, which is part of Deori revenue village, is about 130 km from Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency, and only 80 km from the district headquarters of Chandauli. It lacks even basic facilities. There are no roads, schools, anganwadi centres, or hospitals. No doctor has ever set foot here, and no treatment is possible without going to Naugarh. There is only one room made of brick and mortar; all other dwellings are mud huts. A decade ago, electricity reached the village, and a Jio tower was installed a few years ago.
The water scarcity in Kelhariya is so notorious that people of the region do not marry their daughters to men from the village. They know their women will have to spend all day fetching water.
| Photo Credit:
VIJAY VINEET
Reaching Kelhariya is a unique experience. The road to the Naugarh Dam in Chandauli, marked by serpentine bends, passes through dense and enchanting forests. It ends suddenly, and a rocky trail emerges out of the forest. After walking half a kilometre on the trail, a small dry dam appears. Ahead, you see the village of Kelhariya with its thatched homes. The water from the Naugarh Dam does not reach Kelhariya. All the water flows away from it and, apart from lift irrigation, there are no other means of irrigation. The village is the picture of a society that has been bypassed by development.
There are no proper roads leading to Kelhariya village. One has to make it to the village through these forests.
| Photo Credit:
VIJAY VINEET
Entering the village feels like stepping outside of time, where life has been put on pause. A man is asleep on a public platform; no other men are visible. Women and children are busy with household chores. An 11-year-old girl named Rinkle is cleaning a thatched shed where her goats are kept. Since there is no school close by, Rinkle cannot study and spends her days herding goats.
Also Read | The Great Nicobar Project: A costly miscalculation?
Rinkle may not know her ABCs, but she is an intelligent girl. When asked why she does not study, she says: “Which teacher will come here?” Indeed, travelling from the block headquarters in Naugarh to Kelhariya and back is nothing short of a punishment, though one teacher does manage to cycle in every day.
Water scarcity is the defining feature of life here. On the dirt tracks, at any time of the day, you see two things: children who should be in school herding goats, and children and women carrying containers of water. Even 3-year-old Shivani, who can barely say her name, carries a small water container to the chuaad.
After the women, it is the children who bear the brunt of the absence of development. The village has 35 children, and many of them often skip lessons to fetch water or give up schooling altogether after a point. In September 2022, Bindu Singh, an activist, arranged for a Kol youth called Virendra Kharwar to teach the children of Kelhariya. Every day, Virendra cycles from Pandi village through rocky, forested paths to Kelhariya, where he teaches 25 children, 11 girls and 14 boys, under a tree. His arrival felt like a miracle to the villagers. Bhola, a resident of the village, says: “Earlier, our children used to go to school in Pandey village, 7 kilometres away, but one day they saw a bear, and after that, they were too scared to go to school. It is a forest path.”
But the children who study with Virendra cannot do so with a free heart. Urmila, who studies with him along with her younger sister, Poonam, says: “Fetching water is more important than studying. If there’s no water, how will we cook?”
Government schemes defeated by water scarcity and rough terrain
Government schemes aimed at improving lifestyles have made no impact in Kelhariya. Toilets were built in the village a decade ago, but these were pointless in the absence of water. Villagers travel 15 kilometres to Deori for rations. Gram Pradhan Lal Saheb Kharwar, says: “The remote ravine area around us is as tangled as our difficulties.” Santosh, a villager, says: “We have heard that the government is planning to run bullet trains. We are only asking our local MLA, Kailash Kharwar, for water to fulfil our basic needs.”
According to Premal Kol, Naugarh’s Block Pramukh, and the former Block Pramukh Suddu Singh, a new well is being constructed in Kelhariya village. According to them, the villagers won’t have to struggle for water this summer.
A well is being dug just outside the Kelhariya village. Residents hope it will solve their water problem.
| Photo Credit:
VIJAY VINEET
The Naugarh Block Development Officer, Amit Kumar, says: “Efforts are being made to solve the water problem. Supplying drinking water through pipelines is feasible here. Water supply by tankers is a very expensive arrangement. We are in discussions with Jal Nigam officials. We are continuously working to ensure that the water pipeline reaches Kelhariya. So far, the plan to supply water to Kelhariya has not taken shape.”
In June 2020, the Uttar Pradesh government launched the Har Ghar Jal scheme and promised to supply piped water to every household in the Naugarh region of Chandauli. The aim was to deliver water to the villages through a 600-kilometre-long pipeline from the Bhaisora Dam. The government approved Rs.250 crore for the purpose, but not a single tap has come here.
Highlights
- A thin stream coming out of a mountain pass is the only source of water in Kelhariya, a remote village in Chandauli district of Uttar Pradesh, and lasts a few months every year, which forces the residents to migrate to other places in the dry months.
- Located about 130 km from the Prime Minister’s constituency Varanasi, the village has been bypassed by development with no schools, no roads, no anganwadi centre and no hospital, which makes the lives of the villagers an unending saga of struggle.
- A well is now being dug, which is expected to solve the water problem in Kelhariya village, and plans are afoot to supply drinking water through pipelines, but as officials point out, the decades-old problem is not going to to solved in a day.
Speaking to this writer in January, Naugarh’s Sub-Divisional Magistrate Kundan Raj Kapoor said: “Efforts are being made by the government. We are planning to lay pipelines within a month or two to start the water supply. We did deep boring in several places, but it failed.” A problem persisting for decades cannot be solved in a single day, he said, adding: “Whether it’s drinking water or water for farming, the government is making every possible effort. We are constructing ponds and small dams in the villages. Slowly, the problem will be resolved.”
While Kelhariya is an extreme example, the entire Naugarh block faces a water crisis through the year. Villages like Kelhariya, Pandi, Saphar, Nonawat, Karmathchua, and Aurawatand, which fall under the Devari Kala Gram Sabha and are home to tribal communities like the Kharwar, Kol, Musahar, and Baiga, struggle for water.
Also Read | Great Nicobar: Disaster in the making
Rajesh Kharwar, a farmer, says: “There are four hand pumps in Pandi village, but only one or two work. During summer, people fetch water from a well located in the fields. Everyone struggles for water. It worsens with summer. The entire village relies on one hand pump. Two new wells are being built; only time will tell if they will yield water during summers or not.” In nearby Saphar, next to Kelhariya, several families have migrated because of the water problem. The Ganpat, Ramsurat, and Chhotelal families, for example, have moved to Harsoti village in Bihar.
An unending saga of struggle, but hope dies hard
Decades ago, because of the water problem in Pandi village, the Musahar community left to settle in Karmathchua village. Now, even Karmathchua’s hand pump has run dry. Lalu, Shankar, Ramlal, and Panna, all residents of the village, say they are forced to venture into the forest in search of water. Forest department officials repeatedly chase them away, but they have no other option but to keep going back.
Chandauli district was once referred to as the “second Kalahandi of Purvanchal”. Two decades ago, villages like Kubradih and Shahpur Jamsot experienced multiple hunger deaths. The region gained attention when Neerja Guleri’s television series Chandrakanta made headlines worldwide.
For decades, dacoits ruled here alongside the government. Infamous dacoits like Mohan Bind, Ghamdi Kharwar, Rambachan, Dharmdev, and Mishri controlled this area. When the dacoits were eliminated, naxalites moved in. There are no dacoits or naxalites in the area now, but the struggles of the tribal community continue.
Kelhariya has about 85-90 residents who belong to the Kol community. The Kol population in Uttar Pradesh numbers over seven lakh. In districts like Chandauli, Mirzapur, Sonbhadra, Chitrakoot, and Banda, the Kol community faces a peculiar discrimination. While they are classified as a Scheduled Tribe in Madhya Pradesh, in Uttar Pradesh they are considered a Scheduled Caste. If two brothers live in the two States, one is considered a tribal person, while the other is considered a Dalit. This creates both discrimination and confusion.
The scenic Chhanpathar falls are located only three miles away from Kelhariya, where the water scarcity is the determining factor in the lives of its residents.
| Photo Credit:
VIJAY VINEET
Ironically, Naugarh is home to two of Uttar Pradesh’s most stunning waterfalls, Rajdari and Devdari, in the Chandraprabha forests. These waterfalls attract a massive influx of tourists during the rainy season. A significant portion of the Chandraprabha Wildlife Sanctuary lies in Naugarh, and the Karmanasha and Chandraprabha rivers flow through the sanctuary.
The senior journalist Rajeev Maurya says: “If the water problem in Naugarh is solved, half its issues can be resolved. For the tribal people here, development is a dream. This is not just a question for the government but for all of us. Don’t the people of Naugarh have the right to live like the rest of the country? Will they always struggle for basic necessities like this? Until these questions are answered, Naugarh will remain a blemish on the picture of development.” The struggle is not just for water but for dignity and for the village’s very existence.
Another senior journalist, Arvind Kharwar, who is from Naugarh, says: “Governments come, announcements are made, schemes are formulated, but the ground reality remains unchanged. Corruption in water-related schemes is so deep-rooted that their benefits never reach the people.” Bhola Kol, a resident of Kelhariya, says: “It is beyond understanding why the tar road coming from Nunawat was stopped in the middle of the forest; taking it up to Kelhariya village is not impossible.”
Despite all this, there is hope yet among the villagers. “We have not given up. Our fight will continue. We will raise our voices even louder,” says Bhola Kol. “Our settlement in the forest has fought many times to protect its existence, and we will continue,” says Rajesh Kol.
Vijay Vineet is a senior independent journalist.
