About a month-long civic election process is going to be over with counting of votes on Tuesday, but the drinking water crisis that many parts of Haldwani city are facing for nearly a month, continues to hit the normal life badly here.
Surprisingly, the civic elections are primarily fought on providing better basic services, but the candidates hardly touched upon a burning issue like drinking water crisis while interacting with the citizens during the election campaign.
Tube-wells that provide drinking water supply to Haldwani’s Dahriya region, went out of order on April 8. However, it is yet to be rectified. Officials concerned of the Jal Sasthan have said that it might take a few more days to rectify the fault.
Apart from delay in rectifying the fault, deployment of drinking water tankers on election duties has only added to the woes of the beleaguered citizens of the drinking water crisis hit areas for so many days.
Similar drinking water crisis has been reported from many parts of Haldwani’s Unchapul area due to the same faulty tube-well. The tube-wells became dysfunctional on April 15 as the officials concerned of the Jal Sasthan said, but it has not yet been rectified.
The citizens of ITI (Rampur Road area) have also been complaining about the worsening drinking water supply since April 20 due to the same tube-well problem. But there is no hope for early restoration of the drinking water service in the aforesaid area as it will take some more days to rectify the faulty tube-well, the officials concerned of the Jal Sasthan maintained.
Whereas the population of Haldwani is continuously looking up with a sizeable addition of migratory population every year, the drinking water distribution network has not yet been upgraded at least for the past four decades.
With about 40 year old drinking water distribution network that we have it is quite difficult to ensure smooth supply of drinking water to every household, said KC Pandey, Executive Engineer, Jal Sasthan, while talking to The Pioneer.
Increasing population has only overburdened the existing drinking water distribution network, he added. Though some of the new tube-wells are being set up, keeping in view the present drinking water situation, a lot needs to be done to smoothen the basic service of drinking water, Pandey said.
“However, with the State Government having no plan in store to deal with the water crisis, it seems we have to face the same water crisis this summer too,” regretted a resident of a water crisis hit area.