Woman digs 15-feet well at home to help ailing mother fetch water

nKOLKATA: As a child, Bobita Soren, 24, would helplessly see her mother, Nina, struggle to fetch water in West Bengal’s Asansol. Nina often braved extreme weather to walk to the nearest water source to get it, leaving Soren to wonder how could she come up with a permanent solution until she thought of digging a well. The Covid-19 lockdown allowed her to finish digging the well that she began in late 2019 as she returned home after her college and hostel were shut. She had left the work half done during a holiday break.

Soren has dug the 15-feet well inside her house to ensure her 50-year-old ailing mother does not have to walk to get water 200 m away several times daily .

“My mother Nina Soren suffers from anaemia and is very weak...she had to walk under the scorching sun and stand in a queue to bring water. I was trying to come up with a permanent solution. It struck me that I can dig a well,” said Soren, who has done her MA in Political Science and is pursuing BED from Burdwan district.

Soren’s effort has drawn parallels with Dashrath Manjhi, famously known as the Mountain Man, who become famous for digging a road through a hillock in Bihar using only a hammer and chisel in memory of his wife. His wife died in their remote village for the want of medical care as they could not reach the nearest town with a doctor. He died in 2007.

Soren said her father, brother and sister helped her

Soren initially thought of contacting the village panchayat but then backed out as her family would have been unable to bear the cost for digging the well. Also because of the lockdown. Her father, Hapna, works in a local factory, while her brother is a driver. Her elder sister works in a shop.

“We have assured her that the administration will make it a 30-feet deep well and make it a concrete one. We will also pay her the money it takes to dig a well,” said Tapas Banerjee, MLA , chairman of the Asansol Durgapur Development Authority.