A poor couple hurt over a physical assault for fetching water from a public tap, undertook the task of digging an open well for themselves. Taking time out from their daily routine as plantation workers, Raju, 62, and his wife Sharada, 55, dug a well of 60 ft depth with four feet diameter, in roughly two months.
Raju, a native of Dakshina Kannada district, settled at Anajur in Mudigere taluk about 20 years ago with his family. Both husband and wife work in coffee estates nearby. They were staying put in a rented room until the Gram Panchayat allotted them a residential site measuring 1,200 sq. ft. Now they stay put in a make-shift settlement, covered by plastic sheets, with no electricity.
“While we were in a rented room, we were getting drinking water from a public tap. One day a neighbour picked up a quarrel and hit me hard. I was deeply hurt by the incident. I complained to the police, but it was not registered. Later, we left that rented room and shifted to the make-shift house on our site and decided to have our own well”, Raju told The Hindu.
The couple began digging the well on January 14 this year. Every day they spent two hours in the morning and four hours in the evening to dig up the well. While Raju was handling digging equipment, Sharada lifted the soil with the help of a pulley. “Now we are glad that after digging for 60 ft deep, we could find traces of water”, said Sharada.
The couple have three children. Among them, a daughter has been married, while the two are studying. The second daughter has joined a degree course in Udupi, where she works as a helper for two families to support her studies. And, their son, who has joined an ITI course in Mangaluru, works in a hotel in his freetime.
They cannot afford a pucca house. Raju gets payment varying from ₹350 to ₹500 a day, depending on the nature of the job on the estate, while Sharada gets ₹300 a day. During the rainy season, they hardly get jobs. A major portion of their earnings goes to their children’s studies. “We want our children to study well. They have taken up part-time jobs to support their studies. Somehow I have completed digging up the well. Now we are worried about arranging money to purchase concrete rings”, Raju said. Concrete rings need to be placed in the well so that the structure remained intact.
