Drill Rigs

Drill rigs from the town of Tiruchengode in Tamil Nadu are creating history by quenching the thirst of a large swathe of the population in India.

- Bhushan Mhapralkar

As the debate on bore wells rages in the wake of the depleting water table in many parts of India, a sizeable section of the population in the country makes a living out of drilling them. Most of them are to be found in a town called Tiruchengode, Tamil Nadu. Often linked to an activity that involves hydro-geologists that come swinging a pendulum in response to a call by local as well as regional politicians looking at addressing the need of their constituencies to have water in the wake of an exploding population by drilling as many bore wells as they can, often to provide supplemental water, drill rigs are had in various types, shapes and sizes. Tracing their root to the 1970s when many regions in India started to lap up the new-found demand for drill rigs in response to the scarcity of water and the resulting destruction of crops, the drill rigs of Tiruchengode amount to an estimated 8000 to 10000 in numbers. Entering into the business by pooling money after seeing their crops getting destroyed by the famine in the early and mid-70s, the farmers of Tiruchengode bought a few rigs.