Residents of Satyaram Chowdhury Para in Dhalai district of Tripura have a strange predicament. The village, with 150 households of the predominantly Reang indigenous tribe, is covered under the tap water supply scheme.
But not even a drop of water supplied by the government is used for drinking or cooking purposes. Instead, villagers claim they use tap water for toilet purposes only. For all their other water needs, women walk a long distance in sloppy terrain to fetch water from a spring. Each trip takes an hour, and women undertake such trips two to three times a day.
“The government tap water supply is dirty, foul smelling, and high in iron. Forget about drinking it, if we try washing clothes with it, our clothes turn reddish in colour,” Talubati Reang, a woman from Satyaram Chowdhury Para in Ambassa block, told Down To Earth (DTE).
“The tap water is of such poor quality that if we bathe with it, we develop skin rashes and itching. Our nails turn black, and our utensils turn red. The water is fit only for toilet use,” said Babita Reang, another resident of the village. She is pregnant with her second child but has to still undertake an arduous trek to fetch water from the spring downhill.
Down To Earth visited Satyaram Chowdhury Para two months back, on November 16, and watched women collect tap water in their pots. Within minutes of filling the water, it was covered with an oily layer and impurities floated on top of it. The cemented floor of the standpost had also turned reddish orange, indicating presence of high levels of iron in water.
Water contamination has recently hit national headlines with at least 20 people dead and more than 3,200 fallen ill after consuming the government's contaminated drinking water supply that was laced with sewage in Bhagirathpura and adjoining areas of Indore in Madhya Pradesh. News reports of water contamination in other cities are also doing the rounds. But, for the residents of remote villages like Satyaram Chowdhury Para, neither the government nor the mainstream media is interested in helping address their daily struggle for water.
On paper, Satyaram Chowdhury Para is ‘covered’ under piped water supply. “But what is the point of this water supply if it is not clean? On paper, our village may be covered but the reality is that the water is of no use to us. We women still have to walk hours to fetch water from the spring,” said Rina Reang, a young woman from Satyaram Chowdhury Para. “The tap water supply is also very erratic and unreliable. Sometimes we do not get any water supply for days,” she complained.
The Union government’s Jal Jeevan Mission—Har Ghar Jal shows 86.28 per cent households have functional tap water connection in Tripura. In Dhalai district, which is an aspirational district, the coverage is almost 82 per cent. In Ambassa block in Dhalai, where Satyaram Chowdhury Para is located, the coverage is 83.59 per cent. But this coverage data is ornamental, as reported in India Spend.
An official of Drinking Water & Sanitation (DWS) Wing of Public Works Department (PWD), Tripura, told DTE that the main source of water for these piped water supply schemes is deep borewells. He assured that the water was cleaned through sedimentation and filtration before distributing it to the citizens. The state government has also set up iron removal plants to supply clean and safe drinking water, he said.
In November 2025, Chief Minister Manik Saha inaugurated 45 Deep Tube Wells (DTWS) and 27 Iron Removal Plants (IRPs) under the central government’s Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT 2.0) project. As per news reports, the project “has connected 16,224 households to safe drinking water through a 206-km pipeline network, ensuring stronger and more reliable urban water services.”
However, DTE found some of the earlier IRPs were already defunct and gathering rust in Dhalai district.
Various scientific studies and government reports point out high iron levels in groundwater in Tripura. As part of a study, 970 groundwater samples were collected from all the districts of Tripura over a decade, from 2013–14 to 2022–23. They were analysed for 12 key parameters and six heavy metals including iron, arsenic, uranium, manganese, zinc, and copper.
The findings of the study, which were published in the Journal of Geological Society of India, in July 2025, reveal that “high iron concentration in Tripura consistently surpasses the recommended limits set by both the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and the World Health Organization (WHO) standards, with some areas also experiencing elevated total dissolved solid concentrations.”
A July 2017 document by Central Ground Water Board (CGWB), titled Report on Aquifer Mapping and Management Plant of Dhalai District, Tripura, notes a higher concentration of iron both in shallow and deeper aquifers. The report reads: “Ground water of the area is characterised by a generally high iron content which ranges from 0 to 12 ppm. The concentration of iron in ground water is generally much above the prescribed desirable limit of 0.3 ppm [parts per million] and maximum permissible limit of 1 ppm.”
According to the CGWB, enrichment of iron in water of the area is due to the ferruginous nature of Tipam sandstones, which form the major aquifers. The high contents of iron renders groundwater unsuitable for drinking purposes. The CGWB report recommends that “the level of concentration should be brought down to the desirable limit before use for drinking purposes, to avoid any health hazards.”
Despite having a tap at their doorstep, women in Satyaram Chowdhury Para are forced to daily fetch water from a faraway spring. They claim the spring water is of good quality and not contaminated with high iron. But the daily trek for water has led to an invisible health burden.
Fifty-five-year-old Helen Debbarma narrated the health issues women face. “We daily undertake two to three trips and walk uphill carrying pots of water hanging in a basket from her head. We regularly face joint pains, headache, back pain, and tingling feeling in our legs. In the summer season, we face acute anxiety as water in our spring reduces drastically,” she said.
The Centre for Microfinance and Livelihood (CML), an initiative of Tata Trusts, has recently completed a springshed initiative to save Satyaram Chowdhury Para’s spring. Springshed management involves mapping aquifers, their recharge zones, and then implementing soil and water conservation measures. These include digging of trenches and constructing brushwood check dams using branches/bushes, stones and soil, to hold rainwater and increase recharge of the aquifers, which feed the springs. CML has so far treated 55 springs — 29 springs in Dhalai and 26 springs in North Tripura districts.
“Earlier this year, we dug trenches in the recharge zone of our spring. A total of 120 trenches have been dug, with each trench being five feet long, two feet wide and 1.5 feet deep. The work was done by 12 villagers, of which 10 were women,” Babita Reang told DTE. These trenches have been dug on her land, which is upstream of the spring and identified as a recharge zone.
“I cultivate paddy, pineapple and bamboo on my land. Trenches will not only help the spring but also benefit my land as soil moisture will increase,” she said.
According to CML, villagers who dig trenches are paid Rs 300-500 per day depending on the number of trenches excavated, the size specifications, and the hardness of the terrain (e.g., rocky or compact soil). Payment for digging works is performance-linked and varies from site to site.
For maintenance of trenches and upkeep of the spring, a Spring Water User Committee (SWUC) has been formed in Satyaram Chowdhury Para. The committee, whose members are nominated by the gram sabha, has eight members, of which five are women and three are men. Babita Reang is its chairperson.
“The committee ensures the trenches are cleaned regularly. We have also built a small tank next to the spring where water gets collected. We ensure the tank is kept clean,” said Babita Reang. “But we are facing an unusual problem. There are thousands of crabs near our spring and often they block the mouth of the spring and affect the discharge of water. We wait for hours for water to trickle out so that we can fill our pots,” she lamented.
Despite tall claims of tap water connections by the government, springs remain the only source of water from millions of hill people. According to a 2018 NITI Aayog report, there are five million springs across India, of which nearly three million are in the Indian Himalayan Region. An estimated 200 million people depend on spring water across the Himalayas, Western Ghats, Eastern Ghats, Aravallis and other such mountain ranges in the country.