Water crisis sparks protest in Sirsa village

Phoolkan village in Sirsa district witnessed a strong protest on Saturday after weeks of drinking water shortage caused by the negligence of waterworks staff. Angry over irregular water supply, a group of villagers stormed the local water treatment plant (Jalghar) and warned the Public Health Engineering Department to fix the issue within two days or face a complete shutdown of the plant.

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According to villagers, the water supply system in Phoolkan has been broken for a long time. When protesters reached the waterworks plant around 9 am, none of the four assigned staff members were present there. Two employees arrived around 10 am, but villagers confronted them over their irregular attendance and blamed them for the poor water distribution in their village.

The protesters, led by local youth leader Satish Khichar and others including Ramji Lal, Yuvraj Kuladia, and Bharat Singh, said only one worker regularly attends duty while others show up occasionally. Due to this mismanagement, many parts of the village, especially homes at the far end, do not receive clean drinking water, they said. They also highlighted that several pipelines were leaking, further reducing the pressure and supply of water to homes at the tail end of the village.

By afternoon, a group of villagers started an indefinite sit-in at the jalghar. They demanded that the plan approved by the state government to supply drinking water to the village from the Sirsa major canal should be implemented immediately. They also raised concerns over the poor quality of canal water from Kusumbi minor, which they say was contaminated and unsafe.

The protesters forced Public Health Department Executive Engineer (XEN) Gaurav Kansal to visit the site. He assured villagers that action would be taken against absent staff and promised that work to install a new pipeline and repair leakage would begin soon. He said the Sirsa major canal water supply plan was nearly ready, but some objections on the file were yet to be resolved.

Kansal said the old tubewell motor in the village would be replaced within two days to boost water supply. Following these assurances, villagers agreed to end the protest temporarily, giving the department two-day time to resolve the crisis.