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Querim Village Panchayat in Ponda Taluka comprises of agricultural land surrounded with Arecanut plantation. The village has a population of 1200 families residing in seven wards of the panchayat. Although villagers are dependent on agriculture, 70 percent of the villagers in Querim do not have tap water and are fully dependant on tanker water which is supplied once every week.
Water scarcity has been the main issue in Querim which has remained unsolved for the past many decades. Apart from water scarcity the village also faces poor road connectivity, increase in settlement of migrants and unavailability of mobile network.
The issue of water scarcity was taken up in every gram sabha of the Querim Village Panchayat and it was decided to supply water for the villagers through tankers. But many a times the tankers miss their weekly trip, thus keeping the villagers high and dry for water. According to a villager, Sukant Gaude, the village panchayat has failed to provide water to the villagers.
Querim Panchayat comprises of seven wards consisting of Karmale, Arla, Vangal- Daygode, Querim, Nallem, Amadi- Palsare and Amarkhane. Out of the seven wards only around 400 villagers in Karmale, Arla and some residents of Vangal area have tap water facility while the rest of the villagers get their water from tankers.
The villagers wait for the PWD water tankers to come and long queues are seen in various parts of the village panchayat. People wait to fetch water with pots, and sometimes, they are dismayed because after a long wait, they have to carry empty water pots back home because the PWD water tanker does not turn up.
Lamenting on the inadequate supply of water, a senior citizen has blamed the PWD for absence of a proper system to check water distribution. He further claimed that due to absence of a monitoring system, the contractors function as per their whims and fancy and sometimes supply water once a week.
Politicians and even panch members had assured locals about tap water facility, but have failed to provide the same. It is quite surprising that, even after having the Opa water treatment plant located just 10-15 km away from the village, Querim villagers still don’t have tap water facility.
Another problem the villagers face is poor road connectivity as most of the houses are situated in the centre of a hilly arecanut plantation. Poor road connectivity has kept the residents of Querim backward in their overall progress in the state.
No efforts have been made by the panchayat to improve the road connectivity in the village.
Out of the 1200 houses in the panchayat almost 75 percent residents do not have proper road access. Most people have to walk almost a kilometer through parched fields to reach their homes.
The migrant issue has also become another problem for the village panchayat as increase in settlements have added pressure on the water supply and electricity facility in village.
The village has poor mobile connectivity mainly due to objections raised by locals in setting up mobile towers. According to villagers around 70 residents get proper mobile network while rest of the residents do not have access to mobile connectivity.
A Karmalem resident Akshay Gaude said, with today’s digital world, mobile network is need of the hour. But even after the need for having mobile connectivity the villagers are not willing to setup mobile towers in their villages.
According to Querim Village Panchayat sarpanch Suhas Gaude, the panchayat was constantly in touch with the PWD to resolve the water supply issue in the village. Many proposals were sent and request letters were made, but the panchayat did not get any support from the dept.