Samastipur District

The problem of drinking water in India is becoming more acute by the day, as one can see people queuing up at wells, water tankers, and common water points during summers in mos

With small and fragmented land holdings, owning a well and pump is not a viable option for all farmers.

Harpur Bochha is a village in Vidyapatinagar block of Samastipur district of Bihar. The village, which has a population of about 11.5 thousand people and  2349 houses, remained inundated with rain and floodwater throughout the year followed by waterlogging.

Water is a precious natural resource that ensures human well-being. However, across the globe there is a severe water crisis, which is heightened by issues of inaccessibility and contamination.

Agriculture in Bihar has languished primarily because of high input costs, especially that of energy due to inadequate grid electricity supply and a high price of diesel. Rural electrification through grid supply is not happening in Bihar due to lack of public investment. Also, the existing groundwater markets are neither increasing irrigation nor achieving equity.

Urmila Devi lives in Chaitabazaar village which is barely five kilometres from the eastern bank of the Burhi Gandak river. It is located in a particularly flood-prone area of East Champaran in north Bihar. The drinking water quality in this area is poor. The recurrent floods only make it worse.

Irrigation system in India is often about big dams and hundreds of kilometres of canals that incur huge capital expenditure. Hence, policies at the central and the state level are mostly tilted in favour of big projects and often neglect micro-level solutions.

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