For months now, a middle-aged resident of Rajmata Colony in Jharia is setting his daily alarm at 3am so as to wake up, and together with his wife, turn on the taps and fill water in all buckets, tanks and storage utensils they have at home. On unlucky days, taps are dry.

And now, like the nearly 1,000 of this colony, they have decided to boycott Lok Sabha elections unless their water supply — from civic body Mineral Area Development Authority (Mada) — from is regularised.

‘Paani nahi toh vote nahi, no water no vote’ say posters and banners at Rajmata Colony of Jharia set up by the Jharia princely estate near its fort, 8km from Dhanbad district headquarters, to protest the apathy of politicians and bureaucrats to their plight.

Adjoining areas such as Upper Rajbari and Lower Rajbari are also hit hard by irregular water supply, but residents are not as vocal. These slogans are most visible at Rajmata Colony.

In all, 4,000-odd residents have been reeling under this manmade water crisis for about eight months.

Speaking to this reporter on Tuesday morning, Rajmata Colony resident and BCCL employee Jitendra Modak, 58, said most people couldn’t sleep properly at night here. “Everyone gets up in the wee hours to store water. Water supply is very irregular. We hear there’s leakage in Mada’s main water pipeline and snags in the motors of the water treatment plant at Jamadoba. Whatever it is, the water crisis is acute and is getting worse.”

On why people get up at 3am for water, Vijay Kumar, a grocery shop owner, said, “There’s partial supply of water starting from 3am. That’s when pressure in the pipeline is maximum. But water falls like a thin thread and soon gets over. If you get up at 4am, you’ll be lucky to fill up even half a bucket.”

He added people here had “dark circles under eyes” from lack of sleep over this daily tension regarding water. “Plus, those who can afford it buy packaged water daily. So a lot of money goes in buying water. We have decided to boycott this Lok Sabha polls only to draw the attention of the people’s representative towards our problem.”

Asked, Kiran Devi, councillor of Ward 45 under which these areas fall, said, “The situation is acute for around a year. There are too many snags in motors and pipelines. Though we have raised the issue with Mada authorities many times, a concrete solution is yet to be found.”

Water supply subdivisional officer of Mada Pankaj Kumar Jha said he was not aware of the specific problem of Rajmata Colony, Upper Rajbari and Lower Rajbari but claimed the overall water supply in Jharia had “improved to an extent in the last month”. “The first round of repairs of 17 old motors of water treatment plant at Jamadoba are done. Most motors are old. But we are working to overhaul the entire system of water supply from Jamadoba,” he said.

Additional district magistrate (law and order) Rakesh Kumar Dubey no one from the three areas had yet made a formal complaint about the water crisis. “But we will instruct Mada officials to sort out issues as fast as possible. At the same time we appeal to Rajmata Colony residents not to boycott voting as it won’t serve any purpose,” Dubey said.

Dhanbad MP P.N. Singh of the BJP could not be available for comments as he was in a meeting in Baliapur.