The acute water crisis that stares at Jetpur and Devaliya villages in Vadodara district again have not only spelt hardships to the people there, but also brought problems of finding girls for youths of marriageable age there.
Owing to the acute water crisis in the two villages, parents are refusing to marry off their daughters to the youths from these villages, panchayat officials said.
Despite being only about 30 km away from the ambitious Sardar Sarovar dam project on the Narmada river, women from these villages often have to walk miles each day to fetch water. Around 3,000 people reside in the two villages.
"Over the past few years, parents have been refusing to marry off their daughters to the youths from these villages due to the non-availability of permanent drinking water facility in the village," Harish Vasava, a member of Narmada District Panchayat, said today.
Nafisa Banu from Jetpur village said, "Search for brides for youths is a problem. The underground water is undrinkable due to salinity ingress."
Former Congress MLA and vice-president of Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) P D Vasava said, residents of these villages have been facing this problem since the past several years, due to which, the eligible bachelor youths find it difficult to get brides.
"Water is very precious for us, as we have to walk several kilometers every day to carry buckets of water and spend entire day in it," Sahida Banu, a resident of Devaliya village said.
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"We are not in a position to offer drinking water to the guests visiting our house, instead we offer them a bottle of cold drink," she added.
"The water problem is very acute, which has led to health hazards for the residents," Sarpanch of Devaliya village Neeta Bhil said.
Vasava claimed that even though water from Narmada is being supplied to north Gujarat, Saurashtra, Kutch and Rajasthan after the construction of the dam on the river, people in these villages still face water crisis.