AUGUST 30 was the first time 76-year-old Anjaria Yadav saw water flowing from a tap in Uttar Pradesh’s Lahuria Dah village. Like her, the whole village knew who to thank: “It was DM sahab (District Magistrate Divya Mittal) who made it possible,” said Yadav, sitting at her son’s tea stall on the highway which leads to Rewa in Madhya Pradesh.

Lahuria Dah, in eastern UP, is located on a hilltop in the semi-arid landscape of Mirzapur district. Residents say they have so far relied on tankers that provide 15-30 litres per person, a small “jharna” (reservoir) around 1 km away, and a well that was repaired when Mittal took the initiative after being posted in the district in September last year.

On August 30, after piped water finally reached the village, Mittal (39) held a small “jal pujan”, where she opened a tap with running water for the first time. Days later, on September 1, the 2013-batch IAS officer was transferred to Basti district in eastern UP, before being put on a waitlist by the state government.

UP Additional Chief Secretary (Appointment and Personnel), Devesh Chaturvedi, did not respond to calls or text messages seeking comment on the transfer.

After the small event at the village, Mittal had tweeted: “Today my heart is full. Water is flowing in Lahuriya Dah and through my eyes and the eyes of people there. Even after 75 years of Independence, people of the village did not have access to water… When I went there for the first time, I did not have the heart to drink water from my bottle in front of the villagers. Aadhaar cards were used to issue water through tankers. People did not marry their daughters to this village.”

“But yesterday, that changed. After dedicated work of nine months, our team beat the challenges of geography, finances and other logistics, achieving what people said was impossible. Today, through the ‘Har Ghar Jal’ scheme, piped connections to supply clean, safe water directly to every home in the village was started,” she wrote. “Days like today make all the struggle worth it…