Bhiwani residents protest supply of contaminated water to their houses

While cases of ailments such as fever due to infection and water-borne diseases are growing, the problem of contaminated drinking water has worsened over the past several days in Bhiwani town. Residents of Vijay Nagar locality staged protest demonstration in the locality on Tuesday to highlight their problem.

The residents said the supply of contaminated water in the houses was causing severe distress among residents. “The supply of polluted water has resulted in increase in water-borne diseases. Despite repeated complaints to the administration, departments concerned, and local representatives, no effective action was taken to resolve the issue,” the residents complaint.

Frustrated with the ongoing problem, the residents of Vijay Nagar staged a protest and blocked the Hansi Road to express their anger. The Congress urban district president, Pradeep Gulia, joined the protesters and demanded the district administration to immediately take cognizance of the plight of the residents. The protesters raised slogans against the government and the administration and warned that if the issue of drinking water was not resolved soon, the Congress would launch a large-scale protest. Gulia said contaminated water was being supplied continuously across the town and despite repeated demands by the residents, the government and administration had ignored their concerns. “It is the government’s responsibility to ensure basic amenities such as clean water, education and healthcare, but the administration has failed to fulfil these duties, forcing the residents to suffer,” he alleged.

The Congress leader further alleged that the BJP government had become insensitive to public issues and had no concern for the welfare of common people. He said a delegation of the local Congress activists had met the Deputy Commissioner regarding the problem. “If the situation does not improve soon, the Congress will be forced to organise a major protest,” he warned.

Following the protest, a Subdivisional Officer, SDO of the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) arrived at the scene and assured the residents that the problem would be resolved within two days. The assurance placated the protesters.

The residents, including Anand Sangwan, Sudhir Rohilla and others stated that for the past three months, they had been receiving foul-smelling dirty water through the supply lines at Hansi Road and Vijay Nagar.

Residents present included Sanjay Gandhi, Ishwar Mann, Suresh Prajapat, Shiv Kumar, Virender Bapora, Chand Panghal, Tola Ram Sharma, Tejpal Parmar, Mahender Yadav, Shiv Kumar Dhanak, Shyam Lal Charan, Sunil Kumar, Dinesh Dhankhar, Mukesh Saini, Prabhat Aggarwal, Vijay Sharma, Swati Sharma, Arun Arora, Amit Bansal, Hari Om Sharma, Praveen Popli, Sunil Sachdeva, Rakesh Chawla, Gaurav Sharma, Himanshu Rakheja, Rambeer and Dinesh Popli.