THE check dam, built at a cost of Rs 12 lakh at Hurhuri village on the outskirts of Ranchi and inaugurated on June 17, could not withstand even its first spell of heavy rain. On August 2, its wall was washed away at several places, and so were the dreams of villagers of reaping ``three crops a year''.

The state Rural Engineering Department had approved construction of the check dam in 2005. ``When construction was over, it was summer. We thought it would help us reap three crops every year,'' says Ashok Bhagat, a resident of Hurhuri who has five acres of farm land.

This is not an isolated case. In Jharkhand, where over 55 per cent of the to tal population is believed to be below the poverty line and where irrigated land is less than 8 per cent against the national average of 40 per cent, another check dam lies in ruins in Budmu river, near Sindraul. The wall of the dam built by the state water resources department in 2004, is missing.

Ram Pravesh Oraon, general-secretary of the Kisan-Majdoor Samiti, an NGO, alleges that government engineers and contractors constructed the wall without following the approved design and embezzled the money.

``They must have incurred an expenditure of Rs 5 lakh but showed the cost as Rs 10 lakh,'' alleges Oraon, himself a farmer. On paper, Rs 11 lakh was billed for raising the wall and its embankments. Like Oraon, Sindraul villagers are fuming.

Budmu river had been selected for building the dam in 2003 for irrigation.