Budhanur: About ₹15 lakh has been spent, and 15 years have gone by. But not a drop of drinking water has been delivered. That is the story of a drinking water project in Budhanur panchayat, which now lies abandoned and overgrown with weeds.

The project, launched at Valiyaparamba-Thekkumthara in Ward 10 near Gramam Pookkethachira, was intended to supply drinking water to households in the area. A borewell was dug to source water for the project, but it first yielded saline water and later brackish water, rendering it unfit for drinking. The panchayat then made a last attempt to salvage the project by installing a filtration system, but that too failed. The project was eventually abandoned.

The area is now supplied with drinking water from the Ariyannur high-level reservoir under the panchayat’s supervision. Budhanur is surrounded by water sources, with the Kuttamperur river flowing through the panchayat and the Pamba and Achankovil rivers along its boundaries. Yet, it has neither its own drinking water supply scheme nor a Jal Jeevan Mission project.

The panchayat had also launched a handful of small-scale drinking water projects in areas including Gramam, Kalathur Kadavu and Thoppil Chantha to address water scarcity. However, none of them proved successful.

Questions have been raised over whether these projects were launched without adequate planning or technical soil testing. Residents say the only lasting solution is a new drinking water supply scheme under the supervision of the Kerala Water Authority, drawing water from either the Pamba or Achankovil river.