Officials blame illegal pumping en route
With the onset of summer, the residents of some patches of Baleswar town are encountering difficulties in getting drinking water mainly due to low pressure of supply water in pipes.
Although the department claims that water was supplied for at least six hours a day, yet the residents in some pockets complain of getting pipe water hardly for an hour and that too in little amount. The problem is encountered at Purna Baleswar, Barabati, Manikhamb, Chanubhatti, Telengasahi and Bhaskar Ganj.
“We are getting very little water and so it is very difficult to meet the household requirements. Sometimes, we get dirty water,” complained Manoj Das, a resident of Manikhamb area.
Making a similar complaint, another resident Babu Das of Purnabaleswar area said, “We are reeling under the difficulties of having inadequate supply of water. Most of the time, the residents collecting water quarrel among themselves near water stand posts for getting little or nothing.”
The department, however, gave a different version. “We are facing bottlenecks mainly due to power cuts and low voltage. Siphoning of water from supply line directly through motors by individual households is going massive resulting in slow flow at the tail end,” said PHED assistant engineer Ashok Mahapatra.
“Two underground reservoir networks costing about Rs 16 lakh each are under construction to address the water shortage in Baleswar town.
While in Barabati, a project is almost complete, in Badakhua, the work is in progress. Further, a pump house in Bhakarganj is waiting for completion of electrical works. After completion of these projects, there won’t be any water deficit,” he said.
While, The department has around 63 production wells operative in the town, the water is made available through around 630 stand posts and 280 hand pumps. Around 18.56 million litres per day (MlD) is supplied by the department. The town, according to official figure -2011, while has a population of 1.43 lakhs, it needs about 19.41 million litres per day. “I have about 10,000 household consumers officially and for them 18.56 MlD is adequate enough. The rest population is depending on their own sources,” Mahapatra informed.