Chief Minister Raghubar Das’ pet project ‘Dova’ has become a household name in this water starved Palamu. The term Dova was Greek to many about a fortnight. Now it is spoken and its utility is discussed. Palamu has 1,900 villages and the State Government has in the initial stage asked for five dovas in each of the villages. Deputy Commissioner Palamu Amit Kumar said the administration has sanctioned 9,600 dovas in villages of Palamu. Out of these 6,000 dovas are set to be ready to retain and detain surface water by mid June. Again Amit said Palamu has already 800 dovas ready for retention of rains.
Amit said ‘Recently I had been to interiors in Palamu to find out my self the status of dovas and barring at few dovas sites where I found some haste has been done in the selection of site the remaining ones are coming up as per the specific specimen’. DC Palamu said ‘Dova makers have been strictly asked to compact the soil as strongly as possible so as not to cause any return of the soil in the dovas’. He said the dovas are being made by the thumb rule where the prime concern is to save the surface water. He said a village level approach to dova is far beneficial as it involves the interest of the locals. On land where there are stones or gravel care and caution has been maintained in making dova reiterated Kumar.
However DC Palamu was very candid when he said ‘The MGNREGA dova is a labour intensive scheme where motivation is required to rope in more and more unskilled labourers to earn their wages @ of 167 rupees a day’.