India: The reporting begins

Sonali Kudva, Pulitzer Student Fellow

After speaking with and trying to arrange a meeting with Mr. Gogre, Chief Engineer in charge of the Nira-Deoghar for the last two days, I finally met him today. The venue wasn't ideal but Mr Gogre asked to meet close to his house. So Chaturshringi temple it was.

We met at the juice bar at the base of the hill and sat down. I took out my notepad to write my notes down as he wrote and I filmed. However, he took custody of my notebook and pen himself and illustrated his points for me on them.

It's interesting. I never knew that there were so many dams in the area I was looking at. He illustrated the location of each one, told me why and how water supply to areas further downstream of the Nira-Deoghar would not be affected despite the construction of a new reservoir and canals. The construction of the dam and the canals would divert some of the water to an area that remained dry and arid. Thanks to this water, agriculture would be possible year round.

There were still a few things that bothered me and that I didn't understand, but hopefully, I will understand them better when I visited the site the next day.