KOLKATA: With the onset of summer, large areas of Salt Lake are reeling under acute shortage of water. Many residents are hiring water tankers from the civic body or buying bottled water to meet their needs while the civic authorities are trying to figure out what the problem is.
A number of blocks in the township, including AE, BE, CE in Sector I, BL and DL in Sector II and HB and IB in Sector III, along with the adjacent areas, have been facing water shortage. Officials at Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation’s water supply department said there had been some complaints of a water crisis in Salt Lake a few weeks ago, but that was due to the repair work of the leaked pipelines at Tallah water treatment plant. However, there was no apparent reason for the shortage of water at present.
Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation receives around 10 million gallons of water per day, out of which Salt Lake gets about 7. 5 million gallons. The township faces some water crisis every summer as the demand goes up. This time, though, residents are more worried since there is still a few days left before the peak summer season sets in. “The duration of water supply per day has come down. If this is the situation now, we are wondering what will happen during the peak summer time,” said a resident of IA Block.
Civic officials said the PHE department was working to install water pipelines across Salt Lake, which would bring in about 20 million gallons of water per day from the New Town water treatment plant that has a capacity of 100 million gallons. Besides, the civic authorities are working to set up reservoir-cum-pumping stations. “Once the entire system starts, the long-standing problem of water shortage in Salt Lake, particularly during the summer, will become a thing of the past,” a civic official said.
