Water crisis: Panwar seeks minister’s intervention

Tribune News Service

Shimla, April 22

Tikender Singh Panwar, Shimla Deputy Mayor, today sought the intervention of Vidya Stokes, Irrigation and Public Health Minister, to ensure the implementation of the tripartite agreement signed between the Shimla Municipal Corporation (SMC), IPH Department and the state government at the time of the Greater Shimla Water Supply and Sewerage (GSWSS) circle formation. The move has come a day after Totu residents blocked the National Highway over water crisis.

In a letter shot to the minister, Panwar said it had to be akin to the transfer of all assets and human resource working in major schemes such as Giri, Gumma, Ashwani Khad and Churat.

He said over 1,300 water connections in the Totu area were operated by the IPH Department through the local Totu Gadog scheme. The MC Shimla had just 300, where water was being supplied regularly on alternate days.

He said though the IPH had the capacity of running the scheme for 22 hours, it was doing so for just 13 hours, maintaining people with the IPH connections were getting water once in five days.

Panwar said some of the peripheral schemes such as Totu-Gadog, Shurala, Mehli and seven others were still with the IPH and underutilised. The Mehli scheme was not being made operational even after investing a huge sum in it. This had created unrest and dissension in the population residing in the peripheral areas, where water predominantly was being supplied by the IPH.