Jal Sansthan’s apathy compounds woes of Doon residents

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, May 25

While Dehradun residents are facing an acute drinking water shortage during peak summer days, the callousness of the Jal Sansthan is easily visible in the Balbir Road area where water is flowing from a damaged major pipeline for the past one month.

The water is continuously flowing from the pipe for the past one month but the department is to repair the it despite the fact that the headquarters of the Jal Sansthan and the Pejyal Nigam is about 2 km from thespot. Jal Sansthan officials maintain that the upkeep of water pipelines is the responsibility of the Peyjal Nigam.

Besides, tubewells are not functioning due to frequent power cuts, thus compounding the plight of residents of different colonies in the city. The residents are now relying on water tankers to meet with their daily demand of potable water.

Frequent power cuts coupled with disrupted government supply have worsened the situation. Residents of most of the colonies are complaining of low voltage or erratic power supply in their colonies.

Madhusudan, spokesperson for the Uttarakhand Power Corporation Limited, told The Tribune that transmission lines in the city were tripping due to overloading. The Kulhal-Majra transmission lines and Khodri-Dhakrani lines tripped today. He said UPCL Managing Director SS Yadav had given instructions to the technical staff to act swiftly to rectify technical snags to avoid inconvenience to residents.

The latest figures compiled by the UPCL clearly show that the power demand is 36.71 million units against the availability of 36.49 million units in a day.