(20 May '12)
After hearing the horror stories everyone told
me about getting water connections, I must say my experience was good. I made
five visits to the PWD at Mapusa, where, in the queue, I made friends with a
labour-contractor from Rajasthan, a retired lady clerk and several
still-in-line-for-the-pipe persons who told me they'd been struggling for
months. I repeat, my experience was good.
On the first visit, I
discovered the first floor where on my subsequent forays I sat from the time I
reached (0930 hrs every time) till whenever Mr Head Clerk came (about an hour
later) on a rickety steel stool in the dilapidated balcony. Surrounded by dusty
files that lay higgledy-piggledy and rusty metres, facing a queue that
fortunately respected the fact that I’d arrived before anyone else, I read the
books that I always carry to government offices and doctors' appointments. I
also got a good view of the busy road below and the bus-stand across: this is
the real Goa, I told myself, not the tattoo-stalls at Palolem/Baga nor the
handicraft shops elsewhere.
Never mind the fact
that the PWD is supposed to give me water right till my house. Goan tradition
says that the customer pays for the cutting of the road, the laying of the pipe
and the pipe itself. The customer also keeps the file with the NOC from the
Panchayat, the valuable form I and IV, the neighbour's water bill, a diagram to
show where his house is, another one to show which items will be used (which he
will buy from the friendly plumbing shop down the main road who may be giving a
'cut' on every sale to the guys employed by the PWD... just a guess, no proof.)
On my second visit, I
was taken aback when the assistant engineer said he'd come for a site visit
that very day. What, no procrastination, no humming or hawing? By evening, he'd
signed where he was supposed to and I was guided to meet the supervisor the
next day.
Another surprise: the
supervisor said let's go and came along (ah yes, the customer provides the
transport for all visits) to take a dekho.
Now began my trouble.
There is a 3-inch pipe that gets water to a locality and a 1/2-inch one that
delivers it from the broad fella to one's house. No one in the area knew (or if
they did, disclosed) where the broad pipe lay. I couldn't dig up half the
village, surely? I should have filmed the neighbours telling me where the
broad pipe lay. Each one pointed in a
different direction. Those that agreed upon the direction didn't agree to the
exact place where it might be. Under the
road, at the corner near the pole, no, near the second last pole, not that one;
across the fields, that side of so-and-so's house, etc.
In the bargain, I
discovered village politics: “X said not to tell you where the pipe is.” “Y
said if you get the pipe, our water pressure will drop.” “Don't tell X that Y
told you that,” and so on.
The Panchayat hadn't a
clue. Someone said, go to the Ward member. The Ward member said call the
linesman, the lowly plumber who actually does the laying of the pipe. The
plumber came by (and I must mention this, he came on his own two-wheeler, early
in the morning, before office hours) and told me that quite often they don't
know the location because the villagers get a contractor and connections
illegally. “We find out these things when people like you apply.”
I wasn't getting
anywhere. I went back to the PWD to check if they had a line drawing. Na, no,
nil.
So I decided to take a
chance. A borrowed pickaxe, some hired labour and the ½ inch pipes were laid. A
plumber was brought in to fix them up. The joints were checked. Next, more
labour was hired to dig, dig, dig at the approximate location.
The activity brought
the village women to my side. The area was piled with garbage. Don't you make
your own compost, I ventured to ask. They looked at me like my IQ was really
low. What was simpler than tossing garbage over a wall, they asked me back.
Garbage and rubble took a third of the day. Another third was used up in
hacking branches and twigs of junglee trees and shrubs VERY carefully because
entwined in them were several wires/cables of three kinds: electric, telephone
and for television. One nick and there's be a quarrel. Dig, dig, dig went on
under the hot sun, but no sign of broad pipe. I called the supervisor to take a
look after a cubic metre of hole had been dug.
He came (as I said, the
PWD was really better than I thought) and felt the mud with his fingers.
Expertise at work, I thought when he told me: “This mud is still hard and it
still isn't much below the road level. Our pipes are laid really low. When the
mud gets softer, then we will know we are close to the pipe.” The labourer
seemed to know what he was saying, perhaps he'd done such work before. Lots of
digging later, he struck soft mud. This time, after my call, the supervisor
sent a very young plumber who was in a great hurry to leave for the weekend.
We had been given a
list of things to buy so that the meter could be fixed to the pipeline. There
were more things, according to young plumber. I gave him the money so he could
go buy them and we hoped by the time he returned, the broad pipe would be seen.
He came back very quickly: the shops were closed. In the meanwhile, the white
plastic of the broad pipe glistened, and we all looked on with joy like we'd
had a baby in the family.
The moment the shops
opened, the pipeline was connected within minutes. No bribing. Well, I did give
a tip for the trouble the guys took, but it wasn't asked for, not even hinted
at. Later a friend said, for those who are dependent on the water for business,
there's a bribe to pay. Or was, until this government came into power. Maybe.
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