Kalimpong, Oct. 20: More than 500 people today took to the streets to demand 15 minutes of daily water supply but the civic body has dismissed it as impossible under the existing system.
The Gorkha Dukhi Niwarak Sammelan and the Kalimpong Sangrakchhan Samiti, which jointly took out the silent rally, later submitted a memorandum to Kalimpong subdivisional officer L.N. Sherpa with a five-point charter of demands.
The demands include supply of water for at least 15 minutes everyday, immediate repair of the Thukchuk water source and constitution of a monitoring team on water supply. “There is mismanagement in delivering water from Thukchuk to the reservoir. We also noticed water seeping from the joints of the pipes along a 16-km stretch,” said B.K. Pradhan, the treasurer of GDNS and a KSS member.
Thukchuk is one of the water sources of the town. The main source, however, is the Neora river.
Landslides triggered first by rains and subsequently by last month’s earthquake caused extensive damage to the pipelines from both the sources. For the hills, a “normal” supply is half an hour of water either on alternate days or every third day. Even that had been hampered for the past one month.
An official in the public health engineering (water works) department, which looks after distribution, however, said it was not possible to supply water on a daily basis because of the antiquated distribution system.
“It is not feasible to supply water for 15 minutes in the present system. The distribution system needs to be re-modified totally. Preliminary work on modernising it has been initiated recently,” said the official.
TT
Post a Comment
We love to hear from you! What's on your mind?