Dovas, or smaller water bodies, being constructed on a war level, seem to have turned into a virtual death trap killing at least 14 kids across the State.
After most recent death of three kids in Garhwa on Thursday, the total number of kids died in newly built Dovas in different parts of the State has crossed a dozen mark.
But departments which got these Dovas constructed are simply busy in passing the buck from one to other, and even government doesn’t appear to have any concrete action plan to stop these unfortunate deaths of innocent kids.
About 175,000 Dovas have been dug up by two government departments so far for conservation of rain water during monsoon. Among them, around 1,00,000 dovas have been constructed under MGNREGA and rest have been built by the Agriculture Department. These Dovas were supposed to be used mainly in irrigation activities. But the Dovas have become death trap and the list of people dying in these water bodies is turning bigger day by day. At least 14 persons have lost their lives so far in falling into these Dovas.
Before Thursday’s accident, four children had died after falling into Dovas in Garhwa and latehar districts on a single day. Those include Fudi Kumari (8), Ruby Kumari (10) and one Buchi Kumari (12) in Jhilwahi village of latehar. It is said that they all stepped into Dova for a bath and Fudi Kumari got drowned in the process. Rest to girls drowned while saving Fudi. One Sukan Oraon (12) of Garhwa got drowned in a Dova while playing on same day.
“We are trying our best to stop these accidents to occur. We have called a meeting of BDOs and other officials on Saturday to find out every possible solution. We have decide to plant a red flag near accident prone Dovas in the district so that children don’t venture into those Dovas,” said Garhwa DC Dr. Neha Arora.
Such deaths have been continuously reported Ranchi to Gumla and Koderma to Dumka since at least a fortnight. Chhatu Mandal (7) fell into a Dova at his father's field and his mother Reeta Devi died while trying to save him. Subhash Kumar (Gumla), Anuj Kumar and Asmul Ansari (both from Giridih) have also lost their lives so far and the number has been increasing.
Though experts repeatedly blame the faulty design of Dovas for these deaths, at least MGNREGA officials are not ready to admit it. “Ours is a safe design. We have got these Dovas constructed in a manner where there is a 2 feet wide slab running around at every 2 feet of depth, which means any kid of 2 feet or higher than that gets a fair chance to come out of the Dova safely,” said MGNREGA Commissioner Siddharth Tripathi.
He added that Dovas constructed by Agriculture Department have been reported to carry faulty design, where they have been dug through machines and there are no slabs in them and most of the kids dying in are those Dovas only.
“A serious educational programme is deeply needed to save children from getting into Dovas. We have observed that most of the kids who died in Dovas ventured into just for bathing. Many a times they did it while returning from schools, or sometimes they had come only to play in Dovas with their friends,” said Arora.Ironically, none of the State Departments have declared any action plan to save these innocent lives so far. “Even a single death is disastrous. But I can only say that we are working on it,” said Tripathi.