Indian Official Drains Entire Dam After Dropping His Phone Inside

when push comes to shove...

As people say, each problem has its own solution, but at what price does that come? A pretty expensive one, according to Indian food inspector Rajesh Vishwas, who dropped his phone into the Paralkot water reservoir in Chhattisgarh state, India, while taking a selfie during a day out with friends. 

After a failed attempt to dive down the tank with the help of locals, Vishwas eventually decided to rent a diesel-fueled pump for several days to completely drain the tank in an effort to retrieve his phone. Justifying the drastic measure, which saw millions of liters of water go to waste, he claimed that the device contained sensitive government information. However, once retrieved, the phone, as you could have imagined, was damaged beyond repair, rendering the entire endeavor completely unnecessary. 

Despite allegedly receiving preemptive “verbal permission” to empty the tank, authorities went on to suspend Vishwas from his duties, fining him 10,000 rupees ($121) for “evacuating water without permission,” on top of making him reimburse the monetary worth of the water wasted. 

According to official documents collected by the BBC, it has been stated that the selfish act cost 4.1 million liters of water, equivalent to 880,000 gallons, sparking nationwide outrage for the gross mismanagement and blatant disregard for the country’s scarce water resources.

For the record, India ranks as one of the countries with the scarcest water reserves. In numbers, 6% of the population lacks access to safe and clean water, while over 50% of Indians struggle to access safely managed household sanitation facilities, making Vishwas actions even more reprehensible when taking these disheartening statistics into account. 

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