Rs 25 cr spent on 382 bunds but no sign of water

Much water has flown under the bridge since MiD DAY through a series of reports lsquoThane where water is a luxuryrsquo April 26 lsquoWater may be unfit for human consumptionrsquo April 27 lsquoDolara villagers drink water unfit for animalsrsquo May 4 and lsquoMinister wants to know what Dolara villagers are drinkingrsquo May 19 revealed the pathetic situation of citizens in droughthit parts of the state and the apathetic attitude of authorities towards them In the last story we had reported about state tribal development minister Rajendra Gavitrsquos decision to provide relief to affected villagers by arranging for storage tanks sanitation and comprehensive testing of quality of water High and dry This bund at Dolara village serves no purpose PICShadab Khan Itrsquos also worth mentioning that as many as 382 bunds were constructed by authorities between 2008 and March 31 2012 in four affected talukas Mokhada118 Jawhar100 Wada98 and Vikramgad66 of Thane spending a whopping Rs 2531 crore However none of the embankments could better the waterscarcity situation Investigations by MiD DAY and documentary evidence collected from the minor irrigation department zilla parishad ZP Thane by this paper reveal this ZP has constructed 1212 such bunds in all of Thanersquos rural talukas in the same period Empty promises Locals getting water from an open drainu00a0near a bund in Kapricha Pada Jawhar taluka PicsShadab Khan Villagers suffer Ravindra Shivade social activist and director of Urban Cooperative Bank Jawhar said ldquoA highlevel probe should be carried out into the construction of bunds in the recent past across Thanersquos rural areas In the name of fixing the watercrisis problem local contractors in connivance with zilla parishad officials have run a racket and have looted public money Bunds are expected to deal with water problems post monsoon But here none of the bunds have water after the rainy season leading to a drought situationrdquo MiD DAY along with Shivade and a few tribespeople visited some of the villages where the bunds were constructed and was shocked to find that almost all the embankments were dry see box Bunds gone bust Dead end A case in point is a minor irrigation bund at Kapricha Pada in Jawhar taluka work on which started six years ago involving Rs 302 crore and is yet to be completed As per the records available the bund was expected to be constructed on 126 hectares of land and could store approximately 164590 cubic metres of water However we found that the task was far from over and there was no sign of water except some putrid drain water According to Shivade Rs 302 crore is only the construction cost of the bund but separate tenders are floated for building of alternate roads trial check of soil quality and water presence blasting of rocks and digging of mud and the entire cost goes up by a few crores It is also a known fact that the contractor ensures percentage cut varying between 10 and 15 per cent to officers and engineers in ZP for getting the contract said Shivade The bhoomi pujan for the aforementioned venture had happened once in the mid 1980s by the hands of the then chief minister Shankarrao Chavan A huge chunk of money was spent as the CM had visited the location by a helicopter but nothing happened for years Then six years ago present excise and labour minister Ganesh Naik did another puja spending more money for an inauguration event and finally work started But the job never got done Drained out Local villagers from Aptala with a population of more than 1000 and Kapricha Pada home to about 1500 people have to walk 5 to 6 kilometres to collect water from an open drain Sunil Pawar 26 from Aptala village said ldquoWe have lost our roads and land for the bund Our only hope was that we would get water But in the last six years nothing has happened Even during monsoon the water does not get stored and we have to walk several kilometres to get water The entire project is a wasterdquo Similar was the opinion of Nanu Khutade 57 who was spotted with a few family members filling a water tank ldquoOur village always faces water problem and unlike other areas where water tankers have been provided we are even deprived of that So we have to come to this open drain walking 5 to 6 km dailyrdquo Scam at work Vasai MLA and chief of Shramajivi Sanghatana Vivek Pandit too was critical of the government ldquoThe bunds are constructed without any proper planning study and technical expertise I had raised my concerns even earlier and had demanded that a feasibility study of soils from Mokhada Jawhar Vikramgad and Wada be done by engineers from IIT Mumbai as the soil water percolation of these talukas does not allow water to be stored and hence soon after monsoon there is no water in the bunds I am shocked to learn that 382 bunds were constructed in these areas without any study I hold the government responsible for this shoddy work and will strongly raise my concerns for waste of public money This is a scam and needs to be probedrdquo Bunds gone bust Dolara village Mokhada taluka Water storage capacity 056 cubic metres Money spent R488 lakh Present status No water Resident speaks Krishna Misal a villager said ldquoThe authorities have constructed bunds but I have never seen water stored in them This is just a waste of money The villagers have always faced severe drought problemsrdquo Tokarkand village Jawhar taluka Water storage capacity 056 cubic metres Money spent R887 lakh Present status No water Resident speaks Ravindra Shivade local activist said ldquoThere already are two wells near the bund which cater to requirements of water for villagers from Chapalpada with 400 houses Nandgaon with 1000 houses and four to five other villages The bund does not store water and moreover it creates problems for villagers during monsoon making it difficult for them to reach the well the one close to the bund as the entire area get inundatedrdquo Saturli villageu00a0Mokhada taluka Water storage capacity 055 cubic metres Money spent R2366 lakh Present status No water Resident speaks H P Konde a local said ldquoIt is unbelievable that the project cost is over Rs 23 lakh I was born and brought up in this village and I had never heard of such an expensive project for our village Moreover during monsoon villagers get plenty of water in the well and there is no point going to the bund for collecting water When we require water during other seasons the bund is dry Even our animals and birds have no water to drinkrdquo Minister speaks Speaking to MiD DAY state tribal development minister Rajendra Gavit said ldquoI have learnt that numerous bunds have been constructed in fourteen different talukas consisting of over 1185 tribal villages and hamlets The embankments have not been constructed with proper planning and the distance at which one bund has been constructed from another also raises suspicion I will demand for an independent inquiry into the entire process of construction of bunds by none other than an officer of the rank of an additional collector and also will apprise the concerned ministers about the same I will also raise strong objection to all future proposals of bunds It is a clear case of a scam and squandering of public money This needs to be probed and I have taken serious note of itrdquo The other side Tarun Badgujar sectional engineer irrigation ZP Thane rural clarified that the idea of constructing bunds was to ensure that water could be stored for nonrainy seasons and refuted the charges levied and admitted that the situation was not as thought He said ldquoWe have not received any complaint from any local residents or authorities doubting quality of any bund If anybody writes to us we will surely probe such casesrdquo When asked if the bunds constructed were physically examined for quality at sites by officials from vigilance and quality control departments he replied in the negative adding that every taluka has a deputy engineer and they do onsite inspections When asked why bunds were constructed at a distance of 100 metres at places where there is no water Badgujar had no answers ldquoThe approval of bunds and subsequent planning is done at the minor irrigation department office in Kalwa and I am not an authority to speak on this you can ask my superior VM Devraj Executive Engineer irrigationrdquo he said Attempts made to contact Devraj did not yield any resultsu00a0