Women, children trek miles in summer heat to get water near Mumbai

Women and children in a hamlet near Mumbai trek more than a mile to fetch water.

Women and children in a hamlet near India's financial capital used buckets to draw water from a well before pouring it through strainers into vessels and other receptacles for the journey home.

The scene unfolding during a recent visit by Reuters to the area, just 150 km (93 miles) from Mumbai, plays out every summer morning, after residents have trekked more than a mile to fetch water from a dried-up well filled each day by tankers.

Even though their homes are not far from a dam that provides water to the metropolis, villagers say supplies run short from March to May every year, when temperatures can run as high as 40 degrees C (104°F), before monsoon rains bring respite in June.

"All the water is sent to Mumbai, we are left with nothing," said Ashok Shinde, whose village is home to about 700 people rearing poultry and livestock.

"The government encourages us to breed animals but what will we give them to drink if we don’t have any water to drink ourselves?"

The Vaitarna dam, which supplies water to Mumbai, is just 50 km (31 miles) from Telamwadi, but is not linked to it.

India ranks among the world's most water-stressed nations, the World Bank says, with just 4% of global water resources, despite being the world's most populous, accounting for 18% of global population.