Karnataka   

She cleans the village for a pittance Ground truth

STRANGE, BUT true. For a village with a population of over 7,000 there is only one sanitation worker. Pushpavalli, a middle-aged woman, performs this herculean task in Sindhivalli village, 15 km from Mysore. Single-handedly she cleans open drains and disposes of garbage at the village.

“The Kadakola Gram Panchayat pays me just Rs. 1,000 per month for this hard and thankless job. Is it humanly possible for one person to take care of the sanitation of the entire village?” she asks.

Safe drinking water and sanitation, the two critical determinants of public health, are conspicuously absent at the village that is close to TVS Motor Company. It has been cited as one of the reasons for the deterioration in general health levels in Sindhuvalli. Hundreds of people have become victims of a fever with chikungunya-like symptoms. Blood tests are yet to confirm the nature of the infection. Nonetheless, the village infrastructure is in a shambles, particularly its drainage and water supply system. Drinking water pipelines have been laid next to open drains, some even crossing the open drains, resulting in contamination of drinking water, residents say.

The residents blame the Kadakola Gram Panchayat for the shocking state of sanitation in Sindhuvalli. Their frequent petitions have fallen on deaf ears, they claim, since the gram panchayat authorities neither addressed the issues nor brought them to the notice of higher authorities. Fortunately, health authorities from Bangalore and Mysore have visited the village to work out a solution.

Shankar Bennur in Mysore

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