Chandan (Banka), May 23: Every morning Nutan Devi, Fulbatia Devi, Moti Devi, along with dozens of rural women living in remote hamlets under Chandan block of Banka district, have to trudge more than 2-4km with their children to the neighbouring Deoghar district of Jharkhand to fetch drinking water.

According to the villagers, they have been following this generation after generation. Right from the state public health engineering department (PHED) minister Chandra Mohan Rai to a common villager blamed the depleting water level and improper monsoon for the last 3-4 years for the problem.

Located around 46km from the Banka district headquarters, Chandan, a remote block does not have any modern facility. “Everyday we have to walk to Deoghar’s Dardhmara locality and collect drinking water from a hand pump there. Our ancestors had to adopt this practice,” said Ganesh Mahato of Dhanara village.

People in hamlets like Dhanara, Kanvitiya, Bara, Baskitard and Jingjhal do not have any drinking water facility. “The state government has failed to provide us drinking water but we get it from Baba Nagri (Deoghar),” said Nunashwar Pandit, another villager.

Similarly, villagers of Baskitard have to visit Barachabni hamlet in neighbouring Deoghar district, while people of Kanvitiya (Banka) have to walk to Kanvitiya of Deoghar daily.

Two years ago, villagers at Kanvatiya (Banka) said the PHED installed handpump sets in their village, which at present has stopped functioning. “Every summer, the water level drops and the hand pump remains defunct,” Ghutar Pandit, a villager rued. Some villages like Jingjhal, Kanvatiya have wells but once the summer sets in, the wells too dry up.

Some villagers, on condition of anonymity, revelled that owing to water scarcity, Maoist squads (these areas are considered as safe haven for the rebels), which frequent these areas, do not stay at these villages. “The armed men come here and hold meetings in the nearby forests but do not stay here because of scarcity of water. They return to Deoghar or shift to other places,” said a villager, on condition of anonymity.

Chandan block development officer Kapil Singh admitted the drinking water scarcity in the villages. “Because of the depleting water level, people in the villages have to face acute drinking water problems. The problems are further compounded as there is no water resource such as a river, pond or waterbody in the localities,” he said. He, however, said the villagers’ problem would soon be solved as the departments concerned had already been intimated.

The state PHED minister attributed the receding water level to the people’s woes. “I have already instructed the official concerned at Banka to provide drinking water to such places by tankers,” he told The Telegraph over phone from Patna. He, however, asked this correspondent to write down the name of such villages to him from where people have to cross the Jharkhand border for fetching drinking water.

Banka district magistrate Adesh Titarmara was not available for comment but sources at his office said people residing in parts of the district have to face water problems during summer.