A little girl arranges vessels in hope of water supply from a roadside tap in Bhagalpur on Wednesday. Picture by Amit Kumar

Bhagalpur, May 25: Aman Kumar, a resident of Banka district, was crestfallen when his sister in whose house he had put up at Bhagalpur, turned him out.

Aman, alng with his wife and children, had come to see his ailing mother-in-law who has been admitted in a local hospital. Aman’s sister, Rubi Devi, did not entertain the family because she has been avoiding any guests at her home. The reason: acute water scarcity.

Aman shifted his family to a hotel in the area today.

Rubi said: “I was compelled to drive my brother away because we do not have a drop of water at home. We have been getting food from a restaurant and purchasing water from the market.”

After the May 21 thunderstorm, Bhagalpur has been reeling under acute power crisis owing to the snapping of high-tension cables. Non-availability of power sup- ply has adversely affected water supply. The oppressive heat has further compounded the problems of the people here. My landlord has been charging Rs 350 daily from us for getting drinking water by hiring a generator set,” said Dipak Prasad, a tenant here.

Kavita Kumar, a resident of Bhikanpur, said despite making several requests to private drinking water supply companies, the families were not receiving supply in time. “Some of the companies run a monopoly,” she alleged.

Two drinking water suppliers, Kumar Dikey and Naga Kumar, have admitted doing brisk business owing to the power crisis.

Power crisis has rendered the pumping stations and Barari waterworks, the main water supply plant of Bhagalpur Municipal Corporation, defunct.

“Unless, we have continuous power supply for over four hours, we will not able to store water from Ganga. At present, we get power supply for less than an hour in a day. Despite adverse conditions, we are supplying 10 lakh gallons of water out of a total demand of more than 80 lakh gallons of water,” said Hararam Choudhuary, the superintendent of Barari waterworks.

Bina Yadav, the mayor of Bhagalpur Municipal Corporation, said: “Water tankers have started supplying water to the residents.”

Yadav said: “We are trying to supply water in all the localities but it is not possible for us to make everyone happy here.”

B.K. Srivastava, the superintendent engineer, transmission, Bihar State Electricity Board, said: “Work is in progress on a war footing at Ekchari to repair the 1.32KV transmission line but it would take more than six to seven days to restore operations. The storm has uprooted the high tension wire at Ekchari.”

Srivastava said: “Bhagalpur was receiving 10-15MW power supply from Deoghar-Banka transmission line through Jharkhand under emergency services. However, it has developed some technical problems. Another substitute transmission line, Biharsarif- Lakhisarai-Jamalpur-Bhagalpur has become old and dilapidated.”

He said: “The line needs immediate repairing. There are several faults in it, so it is not possible to run mor e than 20MW line on it.” He, however, claimed that after a week the situation might improve.

Power crisis has also adversely affected operations at Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital.

Bindo Kumar, the superintendent of the hospital, said: “The situation has damaged several life saving drugs with other costly drugs because the refrigerators stopped functioning owing to shortage of power supply.”