And the disparity couldn't be more stark. While the upper middle-class families who burst on to the scene in 1989 reside on one side of the pipeline, the villagers, mainly farm labourers who live in mud-thatched houses, are located on the other side. With the new settlers, who comprise 70 per cent of the hamlet's 10,000-strong population, being given legitimate water connections by the Gram Panchayat, the villagers can only stare wistfully as the water flows steadily beyond their reach.

The pipeline itself was installed as part of a Rural Development Project initiated by the State Government in 1984. Planned at an estimated cost of Rs 7 lakh, the scheme was designed to cater to about 500 people. The Government thenestimated that with some upgradation, the project, which draws water from the Yelgaon dam, would suffice for 2,000 people, which was the projected population for the year 2006.

Completed in 1986, the scheme was handed over to the Gram Panchayat for supervision and maintenance. However, by 1989, the population swelled to 5,000, solely due to influx of upper-middle class Government employees who built pucca

, cement houses here. The lure of the scenic hamlet, located 2,100 feet above sea level, offered a cool retreat from the otherwise hot and humid Vidarbha. And with land available at Rs 20 to Rs 40 per sq ft, they needed no other bait to set up house here.

Thus today, Sundarkhed's population stands at a whopping 10,000, upsetting the Government's calculations. And with the number of settlers simply exploding, the village is now almost part of the town.

The water supply scheme had no in-built provision to guard against the inducements offered by new settlers to the gramsevak and the motorman, inwhose hands the supply of water is in, literally.

The Gram Panchayat, originally meant to supply water through a public standpost, later decided to sanction private domestic connections. Apart from being the genesis of the near-drought conditions faced by the villagers, consequent attempts to raise the pipeline also damaged it and supply in fact diminished.

Though most of the connections are legal, the electric pumps installed in homes certainly do not conform to rules. But the panchayat officials couldn't care less. In fact, the now-suspended gramsevak and motorman did all they could to block supply to the villagers and divert water to their new masters.

A few villagers too had their own official connections but supply by now had become exception rather than the rule. There was simply not enough water.

It was about a decade ago that Devidas Lahane, then around 55-years-old, embarked on his mission to secure regular potable water supply for the 3,000-odd villagers of Sundarkhed. The water crusader, aClass-IV employee at the tuberculosis hospital here, entered into a friendly agreement with some farmers to allow the villagers draw water from their wells. But soon their generosity too dried up.

Says Laxman Ingle: ``We had to run from one well to the other, never knowing which of the farmers would allow us to draw water and who would not. As such, not many of us could reach the fields where we were employed as labourers in time and often we would be sent back by those who employed us.''

Lahane's tireless crusade continued. But his countless meetings with Government officials and memoranda to them, including the Chief Minister, only brought heartburn. Finally, it guided Lahane to death.

With the panchayat turning increasingly deaf to the villagers' pleas with time, Lahane immolated himself on October 5 to jolt the officials out of their stupour. His death has succeeded in focusing attention on Sundarkhed's decade-long near drought conditions. But will the long summer of discontent end?