PHOTO: HABIBUR RAHMAN

DIPANKAR ROY, Khulna

Till last year, every morning before dawn, Nimai Chandra Roy’s house in Khulna’s Batiaghata upazila used to be a gathering point for his neighbours -- not for any festival, but for survival.

People from at least two dozen families used to line up, desperate to collect a few pitchers of water from the hand-pumped deep tube well he installed in 2004.

But even that source has gone dry.

Since early March this year, Nimai’s tube well has stopped pumping water. “Until last year, I used to get a little water after pumping for 15 to 20 minutes. Now, there’s nothing,” he said.

Attempts to install a motor on the pump also failed.

He and his neighbours are not facing the problem alone. Across Khulna and adjacent districts, over a lakh hand-pumped tube wells have stopped working as the groundwater level plunged. According to the Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE), 85 percent of the 1,01,350 hand pumps in Khulna division, including 28,452 in Khulna district alone, are now non-functional.

According to DPHE officials, in Batiaghata, out of 4,185 deep tube wells, 80 percent can no longer pump water. The scene is similar across Jashore, where two-thirds of the 24,303 tube wells are dry.

Experts and DPHE officials say that hand-operated tube wells stop working when the water level falls below 26 feet, and even motor pumps fail if it dips below 30 to 35 feet. Only submersible pumps can extract water at those depths.

They attributed the crisis to the lack of water bodies in the region and excessive groundwater extraction.

Whatever the reasons are, for people like Gurudashi Boiragi, a neighbour of Nimai, the crisis only means suffering.

She now spends her days waiting in long queues at the only working tube well at Kachari Bari Primary School, also the only safe water source in the nearby villages.

“It’s a struggle to fill a 20-litre pitcher competing with 300 to 350 people who gather here daily,” she said. “It takes 180 to 190 pumps to fill the pitcher.”

Gurudashi said the hand-pumps in her village were fully functional only 5/6 years ago.

UP Chairman Pallab Biswas echoed her, adding that, in all 18 villages of Sadar union, 90 percent of tube wells are dry.

The situation is equally dire in Gangarampur union. Milan Kanti Mandal of Jhar Bhanga village installed a deep tube well in 1989. But it became non-functional a couple of years back.

He now walks two kilometres daily in the sweltering heat to fetch water. “Only one of 18 tube wells in my village works. Around 300 families are in crisis,” he told this correspondent.

Gangarampur UP Chairman Md Aslam Halder said 25 villages out of 27 in the union are now facing a water crisis due to groundwater depletion.

“In some areas, water has vanished from even the 1,000-1,200 feet layers,” he said, adding that some people who can afford it are now buying water.

According to DPHE, groundwater level in the Khulna region ranged from 18 to 22 feet in March and April in 2015-16. Now, it’s plunged to 24 to 32 feet in some areas in the southwestern region of the division.

In response, the agency has begun installing submersible pumps and promoting rainwater harvesting. DPHE is also deploying centrifugal pumps where feasible.

Runa Akhter Sumi, sub- assistant engineer, DPHE of Batiaghata, admitted that tube wells are not functioning properly in the area.

“Hand-pumped tube wells cannot extract groundwater if the water level drops below 26 feet. And the motor pumps do not work if it drops below 30-35 feet,’’ she added.

In Jashore, DPHE Executive Engineer Md Zahid Parvez said water level dropped below 30-35 feet in some areas in Jashore Sadar, Bagharpara, Jhikargacha and Sharsha.

12,500 submersible pumps have been installed so far to tackle the crisis, he said. “We are deploying Tara No. 6 tube wells and centrifugal pumps where the water level has dropped below 30 feet.”

Md Jamanur Rahman, superintending engineer of DPHE, Khulna circle, said the crisis has impacted Khulna, Satkhira, and Bagerhat the hardest.

“We have been installing specially designed Tara No. 6 tube wells, which can draw water from depths of 60 to 70 feet, over the past two years to tackle the crisis,” he added.

Experts attribute the crisis to unsustainable groundwater extraction, less rainfall, and insufficient water retention bodies. They have also pointed to climate change and increasing salinity intrusion in the region as factors contributing to people’s suffering.

Professor Abdullah Harun Chowdhury, Environmental Science Discipline at Khulna University, said the cause is simple -- groundwater is not being replenished at the rate it is being withdrawn.

“If the water table is not refilled, the level drops. That’s why tube wells have stopped functioning,” he said.

However, villagers are worried as the crisis becomes more acute every year.

“It is unbearable,” said Milan Kanti. “What will happen to us in the coming months?”