2. Several hundred villages were visited and surveyed by the author for borehole siting in the past seven years; altogether more than 120 wells have been equipped with hand-pumps and bucket pumps in as many adivasi villages. Most villages had populations of less than 500 people. The list of the water scarcity villages was supplied by the government offices.

From personal observations and from surveys carried out by AFARM (NGO, Pune), it results that nearly 50% of the hand-pumps and water supply systems, for small and large rural villages, due to lack of proper maintenance, were either out of order or working inefficiently.

3. The causes of this serious situation are due to many factors, such as:

• The Panchayat Samities often lack equipment and vehicles to carry out repair and routine inspections.
• There are no organized groups, such as village water committees, or designated villagers to deal with minor repairs of hand-pumps.
• Water fees are not charged and therefore lack of funds is one of the major constraints to solve, at local level, the hand-pumps and water supply system maintenance problems.