Even as the operation to extract three-year-old Chetna from an open borewell in Rajasthan&rsquo;s Kotputli reached the end of its sixth day, news broke that a 10-year-old boy had fallen into a similar well in Madhya Pradesh. Chetna (3) and the boy, later identified as Sumit Meena, are just the latest to fall victim to systemic negligence. Starting with Prince Kumar in 2006, India has seen at least a dozen children between 2 and 10 fall into open borewells. Prince is now 23. Along with Harshan, who fell into a borewell in 2014 at the age of 4, and Rahul Sahu (10 years, 2022), he is one of three to survive a trip into the depths.
K&nbsp;Gopikumar (3, 2009), Mahi (4, 2012), Madhumita (3, 2014), Montu (2.5, 2016), Nadeem (1.5, 2019) Fatehveer Singh (2, 2019), Seema (4, 2019), Sujith Wilson (2, 2019), Ritik (6, 2021), Sagar Budla Barela (5, 2023), Aryan Meena (5, 2024), and now Sumit, were not that lucky. <a href="https://x.com/BenefitNews24/status/1873269882390814790">Sumit was rescued, but later declared dead</a>.
Every time such an incident hits the news cycles, the media&mdash;much like society at large&mdash;looks for someone to blame.
Chetna&rsquo;s mother has already claimed her daughter&rsquo;s presumed death&mdash;what three-year-old can survive a week with no food or water?&mdash;is the result of negligence. But whose negligence? Rescue workers? The State? The people who get the borewells drilled? Those who drill them?
Clearly, the kids are not at fault. They&rsquo;re the only ones who are truly faultless in such cases.
How does this even happen?
We&rsquo;re talking about open holes in the ground, easy to miss even in broad daylight&mdash;roughly the same breath as these children.
That might sound bizarre, but consider this: the average two- to three-year-old measures 8&ndash;10 inches (20&ndash;25 cm), the average four- to five-year-old, 9&ndash;11 inches (23&ndash;28 cm), and the average six- to seven-year-old,&nbsp;10&ndash;12 inches (25&ndash;30 cm).
Most borewells in India measure 8&ndash;10 inches across.
The one Nadeem toddled into in Haryana&rsquo;s Hisar&nbsp;measured 10-inches across. At 18 months old, he would have measured about 9.5 inches at the shoulders.
If you&rsquo;ve ever fallen, or even missed a step, you&rsquo;d know that the human instinct is to flail.
Now imagine a kid, let&rsquo;s say Chetna, stepping into one of these holes in the ground. Arms go up, reducing shoulder width, making her just small enough to slip further in.
The region in which Kotputli has loose semi-arid soil. So, as she falls, the&nbsp;earth shifts around her&mdash;literally. She keeps slipping deeper, until she can&rsquo;t any more. Maybe her tiny arms and legs dislodged enough soil to form a barrier. Maybe her posture shifted. She&rsquo;s now stuck. Rescue workers try their best, but are challenged by the narrow space, loose soil and rainy weather. At the time of filing this copy, they&rsquo;re&nbsp;still trying.
Challenging Rescue Ops
Soil types also influence the risk of collapse and dictate the type of machinery needed for rescue operations. Like Kotputli, Dausa&mdash;where Aryan fell in&mdash;has sandy and rocky soil, which poses risks of cave-ins during rescue operations.&nbsp;
In Fatehveer&rsquo;s case, the soil in Punjab is mainly sandy loam&mdash;relatively stable. There, rescuers&rsquo; challenge was how to stabilize a secondary tunnel at a site around existing borewells.
Black cotton soil&nbsp;and clay loam&nbsp;found in Chhatisgarh, where Rahul was rescued two years ago, retains water and can become slippery, complicating rescue efforts.
In Tamil Nadu, Gopikumar and Sujith were lost in regions with hard clay and laterite&mdash;stable, but hard ground that requires specialized machinery to drill into. 
Children fall feet-first because they&rsquo;re smaller than the borewell&rsquo;s mouth (8&ndash;10 inches) and their center of gravity is low. However, their arms may get trapped above their head, reducing their effective shoulder width and allowing further descent.
In some cases, children have been found stuck in a partially curled or sideways position, depending on the dynamics of the fall and the shape of the borewell.
The child&rsquo;s position, the degree to which they&rsquo;re stuck, and the depth at which they&rsquo;re stuck also pose challenges to rescue operations. 
Typically, rescuers rely on creative solutions like ropes&nbsp;or hooks. However, devices may struggle to securely grasp or support a child who is wedged in an awkward position or has sustained injuries.&nbsp;Further, deploying these devices requires trained personnel and, in some cases, specialized equipment. &nbsp;
There have been <a href="https://x.com/PolioDrops/status/1543298912613646339">attempts</a>&nbsp;to develop better solutions.
In March 2015&mdash;seven months after Madhumita succumbed to injuries sustained when fell into a 500-foot borewell in Tamil Nadu&mdash;<a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/can-technology-save-kids-trapped-in-borewells/article7046747.ece">three students created a new rescue tool</a>. Their device used a pneumatic cylinder and compressor to create vertical movement, with robotic arms equipped with an air balloon to help lift the child.
The previous year, plumber-turned-instructor Manikandan also <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC7oYXSZHQ0">made the news </a>for creating a robotic tool that was used to rescue a three-year-old in Tamil Nadu&rsquo;s Theni district.
While innovative, such specialized equipment hasn&rsquo;t yet become standard rescue protocol.
A more common strategy over the past two decades has been to dig a parallel borewell and tunnel at the point where the child is suspected to be stuck&mdash;a process that is both labour- and time-intensive.
Whose fault?
These rescue operations are complex, dangerous, and often futile. Yet they wouldn't be necessary if proper preventive measures were in place.
Under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, all borewells require a no-objection certificate from the Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) to ensure that groundwater extraction is regulated and sustainable. So, clearly, the authorities have records of all borewells being drilled.
Most operational borewells are covered, and have pumps inside them, meaning they&rsquo;re not as hazardous. Logically, it follows then, that most borewells left open must have been abandoned due to low yields or quality of water. &nbsp;
As of 2010, under-construction wells need to be fenced in with barbed wire, open wells need to covered with steel plates, and unused or abandoned borewells are supposed to be filled in.
But the&nbsp;borewell that claimed Fatehveer was used by his family to irrigate their fields. And Seema&rsquo;s father had left his borewell open after taking the pump out for repairs. &nbsp;&nbsp;
Which brings us back to our earlier question: Who&rsquo;s fault is it?
Should parents keep a closer eye on their children, lest they toddle off into the ground? Should the contractor/farmer responsible for drilling the borewell also be responsible for filling it up when it runs dry? Or, does the state need to better enforce existing regulation? Should it bring in better regulatory checks?
And, as Chetna&rsquo;s mother asked the press: Would the situation have been different if, instead of her daughter, the Collector&rsquo;s child had been trapped 140 feet below the ground?

Why do children keep falling into borewells? How do we stop these preventable tragedies?

Down the Well: From Prince to Chetna

Why do children keep falling into borewells? How do we stop these preventable tragedies?

December 29, 2024 | 17:55 IST