Ballari: With the temperature already soaring to 42 degree Celsius and the rivers Tungabhadra and Vedavati drying up, people of Siruguppa and Bellary taluks are doing what their forefathers always did in such conditions. They are digging two feet deep pits in the dry riverbeds to tap water, following the ancient practice of "varthi."
Once the water begins to surface in the pits, women queue up and using small bowls to collect it, fill as many vessels as they can to take home. Local bodies too often follow this system to draw water for supply to villages.
The practice begins from March onwards and continues till the onset of monsoon, with people thirsting for drinking water in these parts. While water usually bubbles up in the pits dotting the river beds if they are dug two feet deep in early summer, the villagers need to dig deeper, to around seven feet, to find water in later weeks of April and May. Despite the time and effort that it takes to collect water this way, the people of several villages have no other option to get their drinking water supply. So they stoically get down to the job with their spades and hovels as a hot sun beats down on their backs. “Seeing how bad the heat is already , we shudder at the thought of what awaits us when summer reaches its peak later this month and in May,” said a woman, Yaremma, of Kudadarhal village in Siruguppa taluk.
