Water problem besieges Tengnoupal
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, February 05, 2011:
Despite being blessed with many natural water sources/streams, the people in Tengnoupal village of Chandel district continue to suffer from shortage of water as the Government has not initiated any project for drawing up or storing water for use by the people.
The Government may have set up Public Health Engineering Department to ensure distribution of safe drinking water among the people.
But in case of Tengnoupal Block, there is not even a proper office building of the Department and apart from some muster roll staff, there are no other employees.
In such a situation, people of Tengnoupal village have been depending on the natural water collected at the gorges for their day to day use.
Some of the families who can afford to construct water tanks use such man-made structure to harvest rain water for daily use.
Khuhpi, Gasit, Turishokot, Seilaland, etc are just some of the natural water sources or streams located in and around Tengnoupal village.
It is a hard task for the people to go and fetch water from these streams.
It takes at least one hour, even by an able male member of the family, to go and fetch water from these streams.
Towards 1980, the problem of water being faced by the people of Tengnoupal village was not so acute as it is today.
At that time, water from these streams were drawn up with the help of pipeline for the convenience of the people.
But in due course of time, the pipeline wore out and there has been no repairing work afterward.
So far, no water supply scheme has been ever taken up in this village.
In connection with the problem of water being faced by the people of Tengnoupal village, social worker H Benjamin Mate observed that the problem of water may be a phenomenon being witnessed all over the world today.
But most of the problems arise on account of lack of water sources.
So dams are constructed and special projects taken up to collect the water flowing down from sources as well as to prevent it from flowing away.
However, in case of Tengnoupal village, it is a different story.
There are enough natural water sources.
Yet the people continue to suffer from shortage of water as the Government has not taken up adequate measures for tapping the water from these natural sources of water, he pointed out.