Dalit Women Walking Several Miles Just To Fetch Water Or For Toilet.

Kalayat in Haryana in Kaithal district is dominated by the Rajputs with Dalits with particularly sansis constituting 25% for the village population. Denial of basic facilities such as drinking water or absence of toilet here like several other villages require minor girls to walk distance every day. Dalit women also succumb to atrocities by upper caste communities as most of times the source of drinking water is located in the upper caste field. Dalit communities are lacking in basic amenities such as safe drinking water and sanitation facilities. The most critical issue that has great impact on women’s life are drinking water and sanitations. Absence of sanitation facilities and safe drinking water puts Dalit women in a vulnerable situation they have to walk several miles to fetch water often results in incident of harassment. According to an article by Alexandra Barton on the water project, In India women in rural regions can walk up to an average of 10 miles a day carrying up to 15 litres every trip. The Human development report 2006 states women in Africa and Asia often carry water on their heads weighing 20 kg., the same as the average U.K. airport luggage allowance. A report publish on caste discrimination against Dalits by centre for human rights and global justice and Human rights watch bay back in 2007 describe that “Dalits are denied equal access to a spectrum of places and services intended for use by the general public such as police station, government ration shops, Post offices, Schools, water facilities and Villages council offices”. As a result of segregation in water facilities, more than 20% of Dalits do not have access to safe drinking water. Only 10% Dalits households have access to sanitation (as compare to 27% for non Dalits household) and the vast majority of Dalits depend on the goodwill of upper caste community member for access to water from community wells. According to census 2011, only 43.5 % of households have access to tap water and only 32% have water from treated sources while 11.6 % continue to drop from untreated sources, Data from schedule caste population clearly indicates that there has not been much progress in condition of Dalits since 2007. The total populations for SC Households in rural areas is 32919665 of which only 6348622 have access to tap water from a treated sources. About 4219829 SC Household till today continue to draw tap water from untreated sources. As far as sanitation in rural households is concern only 7520933 families have latrine facilities. It is shocking to see that there are about 47736 Households in rural areas and 16375 in Urban areas where night soil continue to be removed by Humans (manual scavenging).