Oppn demands all open borewells in MP to be covered

Leader of Opposition in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly, Ajay Singh, today said the state government should launch a drive to cover the open borewells for the safety of people, specially the children.
Singh raised the issue in the Assembly during the Zero Hour, and cited the recent incident of a four-year-old boy who fell in an open borewell at a village in Dewas district last week, and other similar cases in the past.
He demanded that the Supreme Court's guidelines of 2013 on the closing of open borewells should be followed.
The apex court had sent the guidelines to all states, but Madhya Pradesh did not follow it, thus endangering the lives of children, he said.

The government had not learnt any lessons from such incidents, the LoP claimed.
He said the government should launch a drive within 15 days and permanently cover all open borewells in the state, as per the SC guidelines.

The government should ensure that in future also these guidelines are duly followed, Singh said.
A four-year-old boy, identified as Roshan, fell into an uncovered borewell while playing in a field at Umaria village in Dewas district on March 10.
He was rescued nearly 35 hours after he fell into the 150-feet-deep borewell.
The apex court had earlier issued certain guidelines to prevent deaths by falling into borewells.

As per the guidelines, the land owner should inform authorities before starting borewell works, the borewell should be barricaded and the abandoned borewells should be closed.