Nevatalai is one of the villages in Udaipur district, Rajasthan affected by the surrounding Zawar Mines. A few years ago, a massive power plant was built in their village, which led to consequent impacts of environment pollution in the area.
On 26th June 2018, as the sun began to set, we met some women from the Nevatai village to find out how the impact on the environment has affected them. The first concern these women expressed was that of 'water'. These women are responsible for collecting water in their family, and are also working in agriculture. The groundwater in their village has mostly dried up, thus they don't have enough water for irrigating their fields, and the crop yield is less than half of what they used to get before. Many women have to walk longer distances to be able to gather enough water for their daily use.
More so, the water they manage to collect often gets mixed with black dust that comes out of the power plant. They don't have any other facilities for clean water in their village. As they sat down together and discussed these problems regarding water and other environmental impacts in their village, they also decided to come ahead and work towards addressing these issues.