Bal Panchayat Shine Helping Put An End To Water Shortage In Latur Village

The scarcity of water in India is a familiar issue that affects hundreds of millions of people in the country. A majority of the population face the problem of not having enough of clean water for their daily usage. While there are many reasons attributed towards the lack of this amenity including the corporate privatization, industrial waste and so on, it is a quite worrisome issue that a lot of people must deal with.

Such is the case of Latur’s small village, Vaishali Nagar, however this hitch of scarcity of water has been taken care of by none other than the children of the village. The story goes that there were over 1200 people with no access to drinking water, ground water level took a rock-hard dive down for a little over 3 months. Summer came along and so did the extensive heat, this only meant more thirsty people, a few tankers to suffice and quench their thirst but the water was limited and that meant quarrels amongst the people to fight for their share of water.

Temperatures soared and kids were the ones who had to hassle to get pots of water for their families. A little 11-year-old Asha had to skip school and walk over a kilometer to the closest borewell there was, three days a week. And as cumbersome it may sound to have to carry pitchers of water on your waist and head, it was so for little Asha.

Another situation was that for 12-year-old Priya who had to get a few pitchers of water herself as her poor mother was tenuous to get it by herself whereas for her father it meant having to shut their grocery store on those days.

This was not feasible for most of the parents of the village as they were all daily wage earners and this meant the responsibility to fetch water for the household fell on the small hands of the children, most of which were small girls.

The solution to this was the formation of a Bal Panchayat, as the name states, it is a children’s council backed by NGOs helping kids address issues related with their rights and wellbeing prominently in rural areas. They are also a means to nurture community improvement and leadership. Similar to a Gram Panchayat, the Bal Panchayat takes on the same roles as the former. The issues that they tackle are the likes of child marriage, access to basic amenities, child labor, etc.

The NGOs play a role of guiding the small kids with their endeavors in any way they can, and this Bal Panchayat is a strong formation of kids towards positive change in their lives and others. Bal Panchayats typically consist of 25 children between the ages of 11 and 18. The first Bal Panchayat in Maharashtra was the one in the village Sategaon in Parbhani.

What goes on in the Bal Panchayat you might ask, well, it is pretty simple. Members of the council meet twice every month to discuss issues and talk about the rights for children, social irregularities and problems like child trafficking, children getting addicted to tobacco and the ways to deal with them, tree plantation drives, health, and hygiene, and also problems of water scarcity amongst them. These issues are then placed before the Gram Panchayat to act on and help solve.

Saroj Pawar, a mentor from SOS Children’s Villages of India which is another NGO is the one that helped the kids here at Vaishali Nagar. It went on as small kids like Asha and Priya of the village demanded their

right to have a solution to the issue of scarcity of water. They demanded the facility of water tankers and as one can expect, the adults did not pay much heed to them until the children, 30 of them pushed back with an official letter making it known the seriousness of the matter.

This in turn revealed through a meeting the sarpanch held at the village with the children and adults involved that the village already had ATM scheme which is an automated water dispensing machine. However, this was not initiated or acted on as the people in the village were not willing to pay for the facility. This challenge was quickly taken over by the kids who went door to door to every house explaining to the adults the need and benefits of the water ATM with the hopes of convincing them to listen and assent to the facility.

It took a while, as much as 6 months and the village finally had a borewell and water purifier installed on a day as better as Independence Day on August 15 as a figurative expression of this entire endeavor. The children being their happiest, planned out the inauguration and even went as far to help with clearing out the area of installation, and drew rangolis for the inauguration. All you have to do is insert a 5-rupee coin and you will receive 20 litres of water. It has been well over two years now since this initiative and the results are fruitful. Next on the list of the Bal Panchayat is to accommodate for a regular garbage collection truck which will be another news to watch out for from this hopeful village of Vaishali Nagar!

Story curated by Madhura