Water scarcity: Hisar villagers hold 2 officials ‘hostage’

Deepender Deswal

Hisar, June 14

Angry villagers held two officials of the Public Health Engineering Department hostage for nearly two hours in Dhand village of the district over the drinking water crisis over the past month. The officials were forced to sit under the sun in the afternoon.

The incident occurred when the SDO Kuldeep Kohar and Junior Engineer Dinesh Kumar went to the village after the residents stopped the work of laying pipelines for water supply. The villagers were demanding that 6-inch dimension pipeline should be laid instead of 4 inch.

As the officials tried to dodge the demands of the villagers, they got angry and said that they would not be let off until higher officials from the district headquarters come to the village. The villagers took the keys of the officials’ vehicles and made them sit in the open.

The villagers alleged that they have been facing acute water crisis for over a month. “The officials are not listening to us. The village streets have been dug up to lay pipelines. The work is going on at a sluggish pace. When we checked the pipelines, we found that 4-inch pipelines were being laid where there is a provision for 6-inch pipeline,” said a villager.

Later, Executive Engineer of the PHED, Balwinder Nain, went to the village and assured the villagers about resolving the issue by June 20. The villagers let off the officials and threatened to lock the waterworks office in the village on July 21 if the problem remains unresolved.

SDO Kohar, however, denied that he and a JE were held hostage in the village. “We have gone to talk to the villagers. Later, the executive engineer too reached the spot. We reached an agreement with the villagers to take measures to resolve the water crisis in the village,” he said.