Jaipur: At least 17 hours after falling into a borewell, a two-year-old baby girl was rescued today in Bandikui and brought out safely amidst cheers, and immense relief for her parents and all those present.
The baby girl, Niru Gujjar had fallen into the 35-feet deep borewell in Jodhpuria village near Bandikui in Dausa district on Wednesday evening around 5 pm, when she was playing in the field. The child was stuck at a depth of 26 feet. Niru fell into a borewell in a field, which is located near her house.
Thereafter administration and an NDRF team from Ajmer started relief work around 5:30 pm and had been working continuously since the last 12 hours to get the girl out safely. The relief work had initially gotten disrupted by the rain. The additional district collector Sumitra Pareek and SDM Rekha Meena were present at the spot.
The NDRF team dug a tunnel and inserted a pipe through it to reach the child. Initially the attempts to rescue the child through the angle system failed. There was fear that the child may suffer due to reduced oxygen supply and being trapped in an unknown, dark enclosure. However, oxygen was being pumped into the borewell continuously from outside. A camera was also monitoring the movement of the child.
The child’s mother was made to speak to her through a recorder, so that her voice could reassure the child and she would grasp the angle as instructed by her mother. Food like banana and chocolate in a basket tied to a rope was lowered into the borewell in the hope that Niru would try to grasp them with her hand, thus enabling the team to attach the child to the gripper, which they could then pull out slowly. But these attempts failed at least 12 times till 7 am in the morning. Then the final attempt started around 9 am and the child was rescued around 10:10 am when two NDRF workers were able to get down into a parallel tunnel dug at least 31 feet and rescue the child.
A two and half feet wide and 20 feet deep pipe was inserted first, which could go inside the tunnel, thereafter two workers followed and could rescue the child.
Rajasthan has over 22,000 functional borewells. However abandoned and under-construction and deserted borewells are a matter of concern.
The Supreme Court taking suo Moto initiative had issued notice to various states to take immediate measures to prevent such kind of accidents. These included guidelines like: owners of land before construction of borewell must inform in writing at least 15 days in advance to the concerned authorities in the area ie district collector or district magistrate or others about the construction.
Also the registration of the drilling agency and erection of signboards were made mandatory with the district administration.