Thiruvananthapuram: Breaking into male bastion, around 300 women have turned well-diggers in a nondescript village in Palakkad district of Kerala to find a solution to the acute water scarcity in the hamlet and earn a living.
Even elderly women climb down pits using makeshift bamboo ladders and dig arduously for hours using pickaxe and shovel, removing mud and clay in search of water sources in Pookkottukavu, a village panchayat.
Battling various challenges, these homemakers, aged between 35 and 70 years, have dug up over 190 wells across the drought-hit village since last August under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). Only wells and tiny ponds are the sources of water for the village.
Lack of training and physical limitations are no barrier for them to construct 10-12metre-deep wells single-handedly , digging the rocky terrains of the panchayat.
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