Water shortage hits several areas in nine districts

Parvesh Sharma

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 20

Despite tall claims of the government to provide adequate potable water to residents, several areas in nine districts of the state have been facing shortage of water. Though authorities have hired private tankers to supply water, still many areas are yet to get required supply.

As per sources, the affected districts include Ambala, Gurgaon, Mahendragarh, Mewat, Palwal, Rewari, Rohtak, Sonepat and Yamunanagar. Mewat is the worst affected as its 46 areas are affected, followed by Rewari with 13 areas while in other districts 1 or two areas.

Though the figures of the last around 20 days of state shows that the number of affected areas has come down from 103 to 70 in all nine districts, but residents say still authorities need to take immediate steps to redress their problems.

“We have hired private tankers in all nine affected districts to supply water to the affected areas,” said AK Khetarpal, Engineer-in-Chief, Public Health Engineering Department.

There are a total of 6,804 villages in the state, out of which 127 are getting lesser water than 40 litres per capita per day (LPCD), 4,062 are getting 40-55 LPCD while the remaining are getting 70 LPCD. In the urban areas, 31 towns are getting more than 135 LPCD, 25 are getting water supply between 110-135 LPCD, while 22 are getting supply between 10-110 LPCD.

After increase in complaints, Chief Secretary DS Dhesi on May 16 said that special monitoring of drinking water supply would be carried out in Mewat, Bhiwani, Rewari and Narnaul. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar in the last week May had directed to constitute Special Task Force in every district to launch an extensive campaign, especially during the months of June and July, to keep a check on the wastage of drinking water in both the rural and urban areas.

“The government has approved Rs 811.40 crore for the urban areas and Rs 503.20 crore for the rural areas for various water supply and sewerage schemes for 2016-17. In addition, a sum of Rs 15 crore received under the Mahatma Gandhi Grameen Basti Yojna (MGGBY) has been allocated to 217 ongoing schemes.” said a government spokesman.