Water on wheels quenches their thirst

Sanket Upadhyay in Naraina, Jaipur

After keeping all his empty water containers meticulously in place, Babu Lal Singh, 30, sleeps tight. He has to wake up the next morning to fill up “good and sweet water”.
Almost all residents of this small town Naraina, 70 kilometres away from the state capital, do the same as they wait for the water train, the whistle of which indicates relief in the summer months.
Gasping relief, about 20,000 people here were for long, victims of thirst due to the lowering water level. And whatever little water was available was high in salinity and contained high fluoride sediments, which made these denizens prone to various diseases.
“It’s a huge relief not only for us but also for all nearby villages where this train water is delivered,” Singh narrates to HT as he fills up the water from the train that had arrived in the morning at 5.30 am.
Everyday, with the help of trains, about 10 tankers ferrying 3 lakh litres of water is unloaded in a big pit in Naraina from where water is filled in an overhead tank and 80 tractor pulled tankers ferry water to nearby villages and dhanis.
This train, one amongst the three trains, fills up water from Naseerabad near Ajmer and terminates at Phulera, about 50 kilometres short of Jaipur. Carrying a total of 25 tankers, the rest of the 15 are dropped at Peepli ka Baas in Phulera. The other two trains run between various destinations between Bhilwara and Udaipur from Naseerabad.
Locals said that due to irregular water special train timings, the areas water demand got problematic but they prefered to remain low key on the matter depicting their satisfaction with whatever they are getting. Some questions have also sprouted the train journey to the area.
Would the area, once these summer water trains stop after monsoons, be again forced to rely on the four hand pumps and the same number of tube wells?
Is the decent amount of supply of water in the region at present a political gimmick before the elections?
“Kuch to aa re che. Theek che, (Something is better than nothing),” mused fifty two year old resident of Naraina, Kumer Singh Charan, who reserved his satisfaction with many in the area.