Poor supply of water forces Faridabad residents to take to streets

Faridabad, June 16

The movement of traffic remained halted for over half an hour this afternoon at the Ballabgarh-Sohna road here due to a demonstration staged by the local residents in protest against insufficient supply of drinking water. The blockade came to an end on the intervention of the police officials.

Geeta, a resident of Sanjay Colony, said some of the streets in the colony having over 200 houses were not getting proper supply of drinking water for the past two months, causing the residents to spend additional money on procuring water from private tankers or suppliers. She said while complaints had been lodged with the officials of the Municipal Corporation several times, failure to get any relief so far made the residents, especially women and children, to stage a protest on the road today.

Umesh Kumar, another resident, said this was the second time in the month that the residents had to come out on roads to protest about the same matter. He said, “As the administration has failed to address their problem, this has resulted in an unrest among the residents.” Alleging complacency on the part of the civic authorities, he said the residents who hail from poor and middle-class categories had to bear the brunt of poor supply of the basic amenity under such extreme weather conditions.

The police officials claimed that the traffic movement on the road resumed as soon as the protesters were persuaded to take up the matter with the authorities concerned, rather than halting the traffic movement.