The gravity of the crisis cannot escape even a total stranger. The long queues in front of the numerous hand-pumps in the city give the lie to Water Supply Department figures.

``There has always been a water problem in this region, but this is different,'' says Kamleshbhai Joshi, a restaurant owner.

``Never in my 49 years of existence have I seen such a crisis. People say even in the drought years of 1986 and 1987 they used to get water to drink. Now dirty water flows from the taps even after nine days, making our children ill,'' said Farookbhai Kazi, a panwallah.

Surendranagar receives water from the reservoir of Dholi Dhaja dam on the now-dry Bhogavo river. The water supplied by Gujarat Water Supply and Sewerage Board through 12 wells dug into the layer of Wadhwan stone, under six metres of sand in the riverbed is turbid. ``The water is dirty because of the dissolved salts, and this is the best we can provide,'' said a Water Supply Department official, offering a glass of turbid water to this reporter.

Official figures put the daily quota of water supplied to the twin cities of Surendranagar and Wadhwan, which together have a population of 2,00,000, at seven million litres. This averages to about more than 40 litres of water per capita per day, but the contradiction is there everywhere.

Calling the Government bluff is 48-year-old Jayaben, standing in the long queue for water in the narrow Morbi no vaank street. ``I stand in the queue everyday, sometimes even till 3 am,'' she says, muttering curses against the Government.

``This has resulted in spread of diseases,'' she says. Doctors at the CG Sarvajanik hospital say there are a lot of diarrhoea cases due to the dirty drinking water, but they added that the situation was not alarming.

While Surendranagar is badly hit, Wadhwan fares slightly better. The root cause, as an official pointed out, was the irresponsible attitude of the local government. There is a special scheme called the water supply stage-II for Wadhwan, but Surendranagar could not avail of it. ``Though Wadhwan also gets water from the Nayaka dam, the government failed to provide water to Surendrangar,'' said an official requesting anonymity. ``The motives of the government are suspect,'' he said.

Municipal authorities are responsible for providing water to the city. Presently led by a chief officer, the municipality is bereft of 42 elected representatives, after the elected body was dissolved by the State Government about two months ago, sources said.

Notwithstanding the queues in Surendranagar town, the situation is worse in the villages. ``There is one well in the village and it is dry,'' says 23-year old Bhupendrasinh Rana, a farmer of Kadu village in Lakhtar taluka. ``It is worse for the animals; everyday one cattlehead dies by drinking the dirty water from the pond,'' he said. ``The women collect whatever little water they can from the well every few hours,'' he said, pointing to a crowd of women around the well.

Surendranagar District Collector P S Shah agreed the situation is bad, but said the Government is doing all in its power to solve the water shortage. Citizens, however, are not buying the argument. They say the situation could have been avoided. ``Why did we not face this kind of a problem in the drought years. The reason for the problem today is lack of foresight on part of the Government,'' said a resident pleading anonymity. ``We need a long-term plan and not visiting politicians and water tankers,'' he complained.