Large portions of Picnic Garden are suffering from a shortage of drinking water due to inadequate supply by the civic body.

Picnic Garden Road, CN Roy Road and Sunil Nagar Colony — located between the Kasba and Park Circus booster pumping stations — are some of the areas where residents are being forced to use groundwater.

Treated water is supplied by the Kasba booster pumping station of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) between 9pm and 10pm, said the residents.

“The water comes in a trickle. We have to queue up for hours for a couple of buckets,” said Sourish Saha, a resident of Sunil Nagar Colony.

According to the residents, the groundwater cannot be used because of high iron content and foul smell. The tubewells installed by the civic body are often out of order.

There are 12 tubewells in Sunil Nagar, Picnic Garden Road and CN Roy Road areas, but a majority of them do not work.

Complaints to the civic authorities about inadequate supply of treated water and broken down tubewells have yielded no result.

Mayoral council member (water supply) Mrinal Kanti Mondal said: “We have been receiving complaints from Picnic Garden for a long time. But there are problems in installing a large-diameter pipe to supply water to the area.”

He, however, claimed that the Rs 98-crore Dhapa treatment plant would ease the situation. Soil testing for the project is on. The plant is expected to be ready by 2012.

Local councillor Javed Ahmed Khan alleged that the municipality is not supplying adequate drinking water to the area since the residents have traditionally been supporters of Trinamul Congress.

“No matter how many times we complain of poor water supply, the mayor refuses to address the problem. The people of ward 66 are not getting treated water because of the selfish attitude of the CPM civic body,” added the Trinamul councillor.