As an hotelier, the State Finance Minister Indira Haridayesh has managed to bring down 13.50 per cent VAT levied on food served in hotels and restaurants, but as a public representative she has failed to reassure the common man even of her own constituency about providing smooth supply of drinking water.
The matter of concern is that there no any day when drinking water supply does not remain disrupted in one part or the other of the State Finance Minister's Haldwani Assembly constituency. Presently, hundreds of families belonging to Haldwani's Indira Nagar and Mandi areas are facing drinking water crisis due to faulty tube wells for many days. As the officials concerned of the jal sasthan informed, it takes at least 15 to 20 days to rectify a faulty tube-well.
Therefore, in the absence of 'adequate' alternative arrangements on part of the jal sasthan, to tide over the present drinking water crisis, the beleaguered citizens of the said affected areas nowadays can be seen spending most of their times in making arrangements for drinking water defying prevailing adverse weather conditions. While well to do families can afford private drinking water tankers, it is difficult for poor people to arrange that kind of facility to meet drinking water needs.
It is 'inadequate' water storage capacity coupled with poor distribution system that has failed to meet the water needs of Haldwani. As the agitating citizens here allegedly said the State Finance Minister is presently representing this Haldwani assembly constituency in her second term as an MlA. But during the past so many years she has done little to improve drinking water services in Haldwani.
Had the drinking water storage capacity been increased and the existing water distribution system been replaced, the citizens may not have to face such acute drinking water crisis even during these winter months, they alleged. According to the official concerned of the jal sasthan, Haldwani, while availability of the drinking water remains about 35 million liter per day (MlD), the demand for the same is only around 28 (MlD) even during peak hours in Haldwani. But jal sasthan's drinking water storage capacity is only about 17 MlD.
Although keeping in view the poor drinking waterdistribution network, the jal sasthan has also installed tube-wells in many parts of urban as well as rural parts of Haldwani, yet these power driven drinking water sources have also not been able to smoothen the drinking water services here due to excessive time taken in rectifying faulty tube-wells. However, as the officials concerned claim that steps are being taken to smoothen the drinking water services, so in her statement issued in February in 2013, the MlA from Haldwani assembly constituency also claimed to have got sanctioned Rs 129.84 lakh for improving drinking water supply in different parts of Haldwani .
More so, she also maintained then that an amountRs 131.045 lakh for construction of a sewer line between Kathgodam and Hydel area of the Haldwani assembly constituency had also been approved. However, water woes continue to hit normal life here. Citizens can only hope for better civic amenities