Gujarat: 18-year-old girl falls into borewell in Kachchh, rescue operation underway

KACHCHH(Gujarat): An 18-year-old girl fell into a borewell at Kanderai village in Kachchh district of Gujarat on Monday. Currently, teams of Indian Army, National Disaster Response Force and Border Security Force are present at the spot and a rescue operation is underway to save the girl.

Speaking to ANI, Arun Sharma, Tehsildar of Kachchh said that the rescue team has been monitoring the movement of the girl and has provided oxygen to her. “An 18-year-old girl fell into a borewell on Monday early morning…The Army, NDRF and BSF team are present at the spot and the operation is underway to rescue the girl…we have provided oxygen to her…we are monitoring her movement…Rescue is underway….” Sharma told ANI. More details are awaited.

In the past few days, several cases of children falling into the borewell have been reported. Recently, a toddler fell into a 150-foot-deep borewell in Kiratpur village, Rajasthan, and was rescued after more than nine days of a prolonged and challenging operation, but despite extensive efforts, her health deteriorated, and she succumbed to her injuries.

#WATCH | Gujarat | An 18-year-old girl fell into a borewell at Kanderai village in Kachchh. A rescue operation is underway pic.twitter.com/OHZwQgiw9l

— ANI (@ANI) January 6, 2025

A similar case was reported from Guna district of Madhya Pradesh in December 2024, where a 10-year-old boy lost his life after being rescued from a borewell. One such case which received extensive media coverage was the Prince Borewell case in 2006. Prince Kumar Kashyap, a six-year-old boy fell into a 55-foot deep borewell in the Kurukshetra district of Haryana. The rescue operation lasted three days, and eventually, Prince was rescued. The incident led to the Supreme Court issuing guidelines in 2009 and 2010 to prevent children from falling into abandoned borewells. It ordered the Centre and states to ensure the capping of all borewells so that these don’t become death traps for children.

Supreme Court issued guidelines in 2009 to prevent such tragedies. The move came after a bench led by former Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan took suo motu cognisance of a letter petition highlighting the alarming frequency of these incidents.

The Supreme Court’s guidelines mandated: Barbed-wire fencing around borewells during construction, steel plate covers fixed with bolts over well assemblies and filling up borewells from the bottom to the ground level.Further, the owner of the land or the premises, before taking any steps to construct borewells or tube wells, was directed to intimate in writing to the authorities concerned — district collector or district magistrate or sarpanch — or department officials of groundwater or public health or municipal corporations at least 15 days in advance.

It was directed that registration of all drilling agencies, government, semi-government or private, should be mandatory.However, these instances occurred despite the top court’s comprehensive guidelines issued on February 11, 2010, aimed to prevent such tragedies.Despite the Supreme Court’s landmark guidelines to prevent accidents involving abandoned borewells, issued after a 15-year wait, the continued occurrence of such incidents underscores the shortcomings in enforcing these guidelines and raising awareness about the court’s directives. (ANI)