Pune: The drought-hit village of Tulshi, in Maharashtra’s Solapur district, can now expect some relief from its 25-year-old water crisis, after rural development and panchayati raj minister, Jaykumar Gore, promised residents a pipeline by January.Gore’s visit to the village on Saturday — he’s also Solapur’s guardian minister — came days after TOI (on Sept 28) reported on a protest by Tulshi residents, who put up signs announcing their entire settlement, spanning 2,700 hectares, was “up for sale”. Tulshi’s water shortage is acute. The village is a mere 9km from the Sina-Madha lift irrigation project, but in 25 years of the project’s existence, Tulshi has never received a drop of water from it. This year, with over 45 days of no rainfall, anger has peaked across the village.Gore said the govt now aims to fix the problem. “The chief minister has taken cognisance of Tulshi’s water crisis. He asked me to inspect the ground reality here. And it is indeed a serious problem,” he said, acknowledging that while surrounding villages have received water through pipelines from Sina-Madha water project, Tulshi “has been ignored for decades”.He told reporters during his visit that the state govt is working to get permissions from the Water Resources Department for a closed pipeline that will bring water to Tulshi from the Sina-Madha project.“As directed by the CM, all permissions will be given to the closed pipeline project. Work will be completed by Jan next year. We are determined to resolve Tulshi’s water crisis,” Gore said.The minister’s visit also came days after Solapur district collector S Karthikeyan’s survey in Tulshi. Karthikeyan told villagers the irrigation department had conducted a hydrological survey and that a proposal for a canal network would be submitted to the state government. It was based on his statement that villagers relented, eventually taking down the “for sale” signs.Tulshi sarpanch Sharad More said one immediate benefit of a pipeline would be the recharging of the Bhavani percolation lake, which has dried up this year.“Once we get pipeline water, we can fill the lake. It can then meet the water requirements of around 500 acres in the northern part of the village. It will be a big relief for us,” More told TOI on Saturday.
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