Pucca waterholes for denizens of forest
Courtesy Bhuriwale Trust
Parmod Bharti

Nawanshahr, April 16,2010 Cached
Maharaj Chetnanand Bhuriwale, patron of Maharaj Bhuriwale Garib Dassi Education Trust, has come forward with an innovative idea for the welfare of wild animals in the forest area falling under Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar, Ropar and Hoshiarpur districts.

Earlier, the saint launched a campaign “Each one, adopt one” and mobilised people to adopt stray cows with a view to protecting them as well as saving residents, especially farmers, of the Kandi and Bet areas from the menace of animals which used to play havoc with their crops.

Now he has started a unique project to provide a permanent solution to the problem of water scarcity, especially during summers, for the wild animals.

Trust general secretary Tirath Ram Bhumbla told The Tribune that under the project, it had been decided to construct waterholes at a distance of every 1.5 km in the forest areas falling in the Bhaddi-Nurpur Bedi, Tibba Nangal-Kular, Singhpur-Kumbla, Pojewal-Nainwan, Jejjon-Nangal, Tibba Tapparian-Ropar and Garhshankar-Anandpur Sahib areas for providing water to the wild animals in their natural habitat.

“Construction of waterholes has been started. About 50 waterholes would be constructed at a cost of about Rs 8,000 per waterhole. Besides, to ensure regular filling of the waterholes, a water tank would be purchased and pressed into service exclusively for filling water in the waterholes regularly,” said Bhumbla. He added that with the help of Chief Parliamentary Secretary Chaudhary Nand Lal , the trust had got a project of laying underground pipelines at Achalpur village sanctioned.

This would not only help nearby residents to get water for drinking and irrigation purposes but would also help the trust in getting its water tank filled for supplying water to the waterholes. Owing to lack of water sources in the forest areas, wild animals came out of their natural habitat to quench their thirst, which sometimes proved fatal for them, said Bhumbla.