Around one million residents of the Siliguri civic area are confronting a drinking water crisis since Friday as the state PHE department has taken up maintenance work at the treatment plant from where water is supplied across the city.
Since Friday, residents of almost all the 47 wards did not have water supplied at their homes. Water was also not available in stand posts dotted throughout the municipal corporation area.
“It is disappointing that the civic body didn’t make any alternative arrangement to store adequate water so that it can be supplied in the city during maintenance work. Most of us had to buy packaged water. Even the roadside taps have dried up,” said Ramesh Agarwala, who resides in ward 10 of the city.
Sources said while most localities here didn’t get any water, there was erratic supply in a few areas like Pradhannagar, Champasari, Gurungbusty, Deshbandhupara and Babupara.
“Thread-like thin water came into the tanks from the supply line, that too, for barely 10-15 minutes,” said Pradip Chakraborty, a retired railway employee living in ward 29.
In Siliguri, the issue of the drinking water supply has been flagged time and again at various quarters. The existing treatment plant set up in the 1990s does not have the capacity to meet the demand with the surge in population over the years.
Even authorities of Siliguri Municipal Corporation have admitted it, saying that the city should immediately get a new treatment plant with adequate capacity.
“The demand is around 80 million litres per day whereas we supply close to 50 million litres. There is already a shortage. If supply stops at the plant, the situation becomes critical. The only solution is a new plant,” said an official.
After Trinamul bagged the SMC board earlier this year, mayor Gautam Deb took initiatives to obtain funds for a new treatment plant. A plan of a mega drinking water project at an estimated cost of Rs 511 crore has been drawn up. “The civic body approached the Centre through the state to get it approved under the second edition of AMRUT. But there has been no development on this front so far,” said a Trinamul councillor.
