Patlawadiya- A ‘thirsty’ village in Madhya Pradesh with two water tanks but not a drop to drink

About 46km away from the district headquarters Dhar, is Patlawadiya village which comes under the Sardarpur Assembly Constituency in Madhya Pradesh. This nondescript village has never featured in any of the high-decibel political discourse in the poll-bound state. There is an acute water crisis in this village. “During election time leaders come asking for votes but after the election, they forget our issues. We don’t have water to drink in our village. That is the reality of us in this Independent shining India” said Rajori Bai, a 60-year-old woman who has to walk kilometers every day to fetch drinking water. She was carrying dried leaves on her head when she found us on the road leading to the village and she insisted that we see her house. We found not one but three taps installed near her mud house and all were dry. “I have my Aadhaar card and voter ID card yet I never received any Government benefits. I never received a house under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. Before the election, leaders will come and ask us to cast our votes in their favour but our lives haven’t changed,” said she while showing us her broken house and the broken thatched roof. She cooks food on a mud chulha for which she had just gotten the dried leaves. She doesn’t have an LPG gas under Ujjwala scheme.


The Real ‘Panchayat’



The village looked similar to the plot of a popular web series. At the very entrance of the village is a primary school where more than 30 children study. The school has a toilet but there is no water connection. The washbasins have no taps and pipes were blocked at their mouths with plastic and wooden blocks since water never came out of them. Children have to carry drinking water from home and use the open field for nature’s call. There is a water tank next to the primary school, standing tall as a grim reminder of faulty administrative decisions. Money was spent in building it but the tank never became functional. The local administration then built another water tank under the much-touted “Har Ghar Jal” scheme of the central government. Adjacent to the old tank, this new one had water coming into it but from there, no connection had been built in years to send a source of water to their village. “Our eyes have become bored of seeing the empty tanks, similar to the empty promises our leaders have made over the years. It is very difficult to survive here. We have a small cistern made in the village for Gou mata (cows) but even they are dry and our cows don’t get water to drink. So much BJP talks about protection of cows but here they can’t even ensure water to Gou mata”, said Gamri, an angry villager who showed us her empty buckets and a well that has become contaminated over time.



Helpless Villagers
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Sardarpur assembly constituency has been a Congress bastion, Pratap Grewal is the sitting Congress MLA. Congress came to power in Madhya Pradesh in 2018 but in March 2020 Kamal Nath’s government was toppled and Shivraj Singh Chouhan came back to power. 68-year-old Jamini Bai came to us with folded hands and tears in her eyes. She fell on our feet begging for water. She mistook us as government officials. At this age and with her frail body she would walk around looking for some kind soul who would help her with a bowl of water. She is a widow and her only son passed away a few years back. “Please tell me how can I carry water from such a distance? I stay alone. This village has no water connection. Our leaders don’t come here and thus I can’t approach them. I found you and thus begging before you. Have mercy on us,” said Jamini while tears kept rolling down from her eyes.



There were political party flags affixed in the village. While the election fervour has reached the village, water is yet to find its way to the village even after 76 years of India’s independence. Locals wonder how and why are they left thirsty like this.