"ALL THE women in this village used to get up at 3 o’clock in the morning to fetch water from a natural spring located about one kilometer away. If late, they may not get any water," said Kanga Jacintha, a villager of Maram Khullen in Senapati district of Manipur in North East India. However, after the recent construction of a water supply scheme by the villagers themselves, the problem of water in Maram Khullen has been solved to a certain extent.

Located along Maram-Peren Road, Maram Khulen is a small village of 615 households in Senapati district. Apart from being situated 1200m above sea level, the area experiences a scarcity of water not only for cooking and drinking but also for other daily household chores. This has been a long-standing problem faced by every household in the village. The search for water sources is an ordeal that the villagers could not escape for all these years. Every women in the village has to get up at 3 o’clock in the morning and head for the nearest water source, a natural spring in a gorge located one kilometer away, in order to fetch water. If they reached late, the poor women may not get any water. This is what Jacinta explained.

Half-hearted efforts have been made by concerned department of the State government in the past with the stated objective of providing water to the villagers. But as expected, nothing came out of such half-hearted efforts. It remained just a wishful dream. Recounting the problem of water shortage that the villagers and more particularly the womenfolk used to face earlier, Jacinta conveyed that when the water was received from the water supply scheme for the first time, all the womenfolk scrambled for the tap and there was an atmosphere of festivity in the village.

There is also an interesting story behind the construction of the present water supply scheme in the village. When officials of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) came to the village for survey work and asked villagers what they wanted most for their village, the answer was simple and unanimous - a water supply scheme.

Accordingly, with a funding of Rs22 lakhs from IFAD and a contribution of Rs7 lakhs from the village besides another Rs6 lakhs from a local MLA, MP and DRDA, the construction of the water supply scheme began in 2003. Over and above the monetary contribution, villagers have also provided the needed labour and materials for the project. The water source for the project too had been located after a long search of several nights in the jungle at a place located 13km away from the village. It is just a tiny natural spring at Poklam in Punghu Range.

Forgetting their own sufferings, the villagers spend over two years constructing a footpath from the water source up to the project site with the help of an altimeter (an instrument that measures the height above ground) provided by the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED). To make a footpath along the difficult terrain was such a great risk. Yet the villagers did not care even if they had to dangle from a cliff with the help of a rope tied around their waist just for the sake of water.

“The joy of the villagers on completion of the water supply scheme and its final commissioning on September 23, 2008 was something that would be remembered forever,” Jacintha said, adding that grand festivities were organised and there was an air of celebration in the village that day. Even if there is no tap water connection in all households, the villagers can now at least be certain of easy access to water from the reservoir. However, whether the water tapped from the tiny natural spring whose resource is also subjected to the changing weather patterns, is enough or not to meet the requirements of the ever-expanding village and its growing population, is still a big question.