SHIMLA, May 17: Faced with a severe drinking water crisis, hundreds of residents today came on the streets to protest against erratic and insufficient water supply in the town for over the past two weeks.In the evening, there was a traffic jam near Tara Hall School on the Cart Road as local residents raised slogans against the municipal authorities and sat in dharna.The problem had aggravated in at least a dozen localities, which have gone without water supply even on the third day. The Shimla Municipal Corporation, which mans the supply and distribution network, has also refused to take responsibility for the short supply and non-availability of water.
``If the situation does not improve in the next three days, I myself will sit on dharna,'' Mayor Manoj Kumar says. He blames the HP State Electricity Board for irregular power supply and the Irrigation and Public Health Department for inadequate pumping which has affected the main supply.Earlier, in the morning, the agitated residents took out a procession and blocked the road near Victory Tunner for nearly an hour by sitting in dharna in the middle of the road. Many residents propose to follow suit tomorrow in localities like Cliston, Longwood, Bharari, Kasumpti, Fingask Estate, Nabha, Fagli, Kaithu, Krishna Nagar, Jakhu and UC Club.
Residents complain that the municipal staff had resorted to unfair distribution of water.
``Why is there no water shortage in some of the premier hotels and VVIP areas?''asks Anuradha Chawla, a housewife of Fingask Estate. She complained that there was not even a drop of water in her house for cooking. Those who have vehicles are driving all the way to Dhalli to fetch water from a water source downhill.
The municipal authorities have not even deployed tankers for supply of water. There are long queues waiting endlessly for hours to fetch water, but many return disappointed carrying home empty buckets.
Tourists too are feeling the pinch.`` My hotelier told me when I checked in, that I will get only one bucket of water for a day's stay,'' alleges Swati Chander, a tourist from Delhi.
When contacted, the HPSEB engineers deny any lapse on their part or any shortfall of power to the pumping stations during their operations. However, they admit that frequency of power occasionally went down and this was beyond the control of the board. IPH Chief Engineer Abhigya Chauhan puts the entire burden on HPSEB. He says low frequency of power has been the major cause. It affects the functioning of the motors and pumping sets. Thus full lifting of the water required for distribution is not possible.
The mayor says that against a daily requirement of 30 lakh gallon, the corporation has been supplied just 10 lakh gallon.The hoteliers are also a worried lot and fear that the water crisis would adversely affect their business.
Two years back, the state high court had intervened and got the supply streamlined but the system had collapse again. This was despite the fact that Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal himself had held a high-level meeting and put Minister Narinder Bragta on the job to ensure proper drinking water supply.
