erode holding a pot filled with water on her head with one hand and a toddler on her hips with the other hand ponnuthayi shanmugam 28 a resident of bargur tribal hamlet is forced to walk through the dense forest of sathyamangalam tiger reserve here for two kilometres daily she represents the plight of the people in her hamlet in fetching drinking water not only me others in the hamlet too have no other option but to trek the forest daily to fetch potable water to avoid mananimal conflict we usually go as a group to bring water she told toithe entire hamlet was dependent on a lone borewell for potable water it has been dry for the past three years now we fetch water from a nearby place said e mathaiyan one of the local residents the hamlet that is home to nearly 6000 residents also lacks a healthcare facility to avail medical aid they have to travel all the way to the primary health centre at hosur which is 15km away p sathya another villager said we were happy when the primary health centre commenced its services at hosur about a decade ago but the doctors and nurses there close the facility at 4pm citing animal movement post 4pm patients especially pregnant women are forced to travel nearly 30km to thattakarai another tribal hamlet for medical aid the villagers said it was risky for them to travel through the forest in the evenings when wild animals start roaming around we dont have tar roads and during rainy days it is difficult for us to venture out pointing out that bargur panchayath was home to 34 tribal hamlets mathaiyan said many hamlets were yet to get electricity connections only a few hamlets have electricity facility there will however be hardly any power supply during monsoon seasonwhen contacted district collector h krishnanunni said he was aware about the plight of the people of bargur hamlet we will take steps to provide them drinking water facilities under the union governments jal jeevan missiontalking about the primary health centre the collector said he had directed the health department to depute three nurses to work round the clock we are setting up an additional building for the doctors and nurses to stay at night