B. Ramesh is in his late 20s. On Monday, he was busy working till around 3.30 a.m. After two-and-a-half hours of rest, he was back at work at 6 a.m. on Tuesday.
Ramesh has been busy since the past 24 hours because he was identifying places where the Mission Bhagiratha pipelines need to be kept so that it would be easy to lay them in the trenches dug in the village in the morning.
Not just Ramesh, almost all the youths in the village were busy all day on Tuesday in laying pipelines in the trenches dug by machines. While their participation was 30 on Monday, it increased to 70 on Tuesday. However, the hiring of labour was limited to technical experts like JCB operator, road cutter and pipeline jointing experts.
It seemed as if the entire village moved to take up the responsibility in a festive mood. Not just this, at least one member from every household participated in digging the trench to lay tap connections instead of hiring labour.
Malkapur is the village which was adopted by Collector Ronald Rose last year, and a turnaround was visible since the past three months. All the households got the individual sanitary latrines (ISL), and soak pits were constructed. That apart, about 50 solar lights were also sanctioned for the village.
As part of completing Mission Bhagiratha, the pipelines were laid in the village and the first tap connection was given to Jinka Chandrakala and Jinka Lakshmi.
In the 1,715-populated Malkapur village, there are 340 houses for which tap connections are being given. The process was expected to get completed by Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.
