The 25,000 residents of the two villages are aware of the dangers of drinking waste water - even if twice boiled and treated with alum - but say the only alternative is dying of thirst. ``We know it is harmful. But, is there a option?'' asks Ramesh Whatkar, a resident, who along with two others - Sushila Badgujar and Vasant Sutar - is on an indefinite hunger strike which entered its sixth day today. When reports last came in Whatkar and Badjugar were critical.

Ashile and Manivilie are situated on what was once a marsh. With rising populationand the corresponding rise in real-estate prices, people began flocking to these villages looking for accommodation which was available for cheap in the chawls built indiscriminately all over. When the government decided to amalgamate these villages along with 25 others with the KDMC in 1991, the Ulhasnagar Municipal Corporation (UMC) which is closer to Ashile and Manivile withdrew the water supply saying it was now the KDMC's responsibility. Ever since then all the taps here have run dry.

Ayappa Pillai (65) a resident of Vasant Niwas near barrack no. 1651 points to the hole which he has dug in his one-room tenement. ``We just scoop out water which collects every once in a while,'' he says offering a glassful to this reporter. The all-pervading stench from the water is enough to discourage even the most thirsty. ``We put lots of alum and boil the water before consuming it,'' he says, adding that the smell, however, refuses to go. And this is true of all the houses. Subhash Pote, one of Pillai's neighbours,dug almost eight-feet deep before he struck water.

But obviously these holes do not produce enough water for daily use and the villagers then turn to the open drain. Sulochana V Gaikwad spends a major part of her day collecting water from the open nullah. Her son Sagharsh (two) has developed sores all over his body due to the dirty water. When asked whether she knew the risk involved in drinking the dirty water, Gaikwad breaks into tears. And as she sobs she uses some of the choicest abuses in Marathi to assail the civic officials. ``They want our children to die of thirst and disease,'' she cries.

Disfigured faces due to skin eruptions are a common sight in this area which is surrounded by an MIDC industrial zone. ``Wash from hazardous industries runs into nullahs from which the women fill water and the effects are there for everyone to see,'' points out Sushila Badgujar. ``There are hand-pumps and borewells in the area which have been dysfunctional for over a decade.'' The two handpumps that work spewthe same venomous stuff which the residents get in the holes dug at home. ``We have tried everyone - senior civic authorities to the collectorate to the state government ministers. All we get each time are assurances,'' she says.

Whatkar shows a copy of the Minsiter of State for Urban Development Ravindra Mane's letter (dated November 11, 1998) to the KDMC commissioner ordering him to solve the water problem faced by the villages immediately. Nothing came of it. The Chief Minister himself visited these villages and promised on January 7 that he would decide the issue ``once and for all'' within a week. More than fortnight later the villagers are still waiting.

Following a morcha on January 27, Executive Engineer Pramod Kulkarni has promised that water tankers would be sent to the villages. ``We have made arrangements for nearly 5 trips every day,'' he told Express Newsline.

But the villagers allege that this is untrue. ``Hardly one tanker comes here in two-three days,'' points out Whatkar.``Most of the times the drivers sell off water to construction sites en route and the vehicles arrive half empty.'

'Ashile and Manivilie are among the 27 villages which have been boycotting parliamentary, assembly and civic elections since 1991 to protest their amalgamation into the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation. ``When we oppose the amalgamation it is due to these problems,'' says Whatkar and adds that the boycott would continue, though they are also planning to take more drastic steps like self-immolation. ``We are living with death anyway...somebody will have to lay his life for the cause.''