Kundabai Batose (56) has seen a whirlwind of change around her — everywhere except in her tiny village. She was just three months old when her family was uprooted — along with several others — from its village, Akalpe, in Satara district’s Jawali taluka to make way for the Koyna hydroelectric project and shifted to the outskirts of Kharghar in 1961. The new settlers of what came to be known as Owe Camp village were promised the moon by the state government at the time of rehabilitation: a planned town with all facilities.

A villager tries to scoop whatever little water he can from one of the two wells in Owe Camp village in Kharghar