REGIONS ALONG GOA MINING BELT BATTLE WATER SHORTAGE

PANAJI: Every summer, over 50,000 devotees of Goddess Lairai descend to Shirgao, a village of 2,700 residents in the mining-ravaged Bicholim taluka in north Goa, for the annual Zatra (religious fair). For weeks before the festival, the devotees —known as the Dhonds — bathe before walking on live coals.

Over the last few years, however, the village wells have been drying up in summer and forcing the Dhonds, who gather from across Goa, to rely on water supplied by tankers for their ritual bath.

“We did not realise all these years that as the miners went deeper and deeper, the water would get sucked out. The wells have gone dry and people are running here and there for water,” said Sadanand Gaonkar, the sarpanch of Mayem, in north Goa, said.

It’s not a problem restricted to Mayem. Not too far away, the once-perennial Haravalem waterfall, also considered sacred, goes dry in summer. Across Goa’s mining belt that borders the eco-sensitive Western Ghats, villagers claim that the drying of wells in summer forces them to rely on water supplied by tankers.

“The water that the Goa public works department (PWD) supplies does not meet our needs

. Every year, our wells dry up after the monsoon because of the mining pits.

This year, too, they have dried up. Even after mining has stopped,” said Santosh Gawade a resident of Sonshi village in northeast Goa’s Sattari taluka which is home to 12 mines. Mining was banned in Goa in February 2017 by the Supreme Court.