Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink

This is the story of Sandeshkali, a small island in the vast estuary/delta of the Ganga River in the North 24 Parganas District of West Bengal, India. In this lonely outpost, close to the Bangladesh border, for more than 200,000 residents, life is a constant struggle against poverty, lack of jobs, forces of nature and constant human rights violations. We would like to focus on one fundamental issue facing the hapless people of Sandeshkali. Lack of potable, drinking water affects the whole island.

On a recent trip to Sandeshkali, social workers met with hundreds of ordinary women. Their biggest grievance: lack of fresh water for their babies. This appears to be a paradox when one considers that this place is surrounded by water. The river is nearly 500 feet deep here. However, the water is brackish and totally unusable for drinking, cooking, bathing or washing clothes. These unfortunate sisters and brothers need help from the outside world.

Dharmansh USA, a federally-approved 501 © (3) charity, built two deep tube wells on the island. Each well was connected to a manual pump. Electric pump was not   installed due to the cost and unreliable power supply. Since the soil is heavily salty, one has to dig very deep i.e. more than 800 feet, to reach drinkable water. With this in mind, our local team  enquired with several contractors and the best price for one deep well with all its accessories came  to INR 400,000.00. Total cost to install 2 wells was INR 800,000.00, approximately 9,500.00 USD.

 

We initiated a special fundraiser for this purpose and the necessary money was collected in a timely manner.