Maken joins water protest

The protesters were supported by Congress leaders Ajay Maken,the area parliamentarian,and legislator Barkha Singh,who pledged to go on a hunger strike if the residents’ woes were not addressed at the earliest. Maken said though the government allots 230 litres of water for a person per day,water shortage issues crop up due to water leakage and theft. “This has been happening for years now,and it is high time the government replaced the rusted water pipelines,” Maken said.

Maken had supported a protest against the government last month also,when residents of Vasant Vihar condemned a Public Works Department proposal to construct a foot-overbridge near their colony.

Residents said though they have always been short of water,allegedly because their areas were at the tail-end of the supply network,this summer has been particularly bad due to “mismanagement by the DJB”. They said the tanker supply,which was earlier prioritised by the Residents’ Welfare Association on a need-based list,was not being followed anymore. The DJB tankers,they alleged,had started demanding money from residents.

“Aggravating our water woes now is the fact that DJB tankers,which are supposed to supply water free of cost,are prioritising it on the basis of money paid by the residents. There is no doubt that residents are at fault too — because they pay up — but we are angry about this kind of behaviour in our area,” said Gautam Vohra,president of the Vasant Vihar RWA.

According to Vohra,Maken has given his assurance that if the residents’ problems are not addressed within four days,he would take them on a protest march to Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s office. “It is difficult to ensure proper water supply with the kind of bureaucracy within the Jal Board. We wrote to the Chief Minister many times to seek an appointment,but did not get any response,” Vohra said.

According to residents,they are charged Rs 500 per tanker. “Vasant Vihar has 1,320 buildings,and most of them are multi-storied. The DJB supplies water for 10 minutes per house. How is anybody going to survive on this kind of supply?” questioned Vohra.

The DJB,for its part,said demand for water goes up by at least 20 per cent during peak summer,and the Haiderpur treatment plant had been unable to provide enough last week. “The production from the Haiderpur treatment plant had gone down from 225 to 215 million gallons (MGD) a day. But things are better today,with the supply from Haiderpur reaching 220 MGD,” a senior DJB official said.

The official admitted that there have been complaints of tankers charging money from residents. “Vigilance inspections were increased after we received the complaints,and we are looking into the issue,” he said.