Residents of Ward 67 stage a protest against waterlogging in Patna City on Sunday. Picture by Sachin

Patna, April 24: A month-and-a-half before monsoon actually arrives, the residents of Patna City have started experiencing it. For, several lanes of this area are waterlogged for the past few days.

Worse, the citizens wading through the knee-deep water are spending thirsty days for the past several months because they are not receiving drinking water.

Unable to bear the pathetic situation, the residents of Nehru Tola, Humad Lane, Bakshi Maidan and Garhi Par today hit the streets and staged a dharna.

Dr Vinod Awasthi, a resident of one of the localities leading the protesters, said: “Our life has become hell. Nobody is listening to our repeated complaints.”

He said the apathy of Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) has made things tough for around 35,000 residents who live in these localities.

Radha Devi, a resident of Humad Lane, said that the drains of this locality had not been cleaned for the past 15 years and that had led to the present situation as drain water has started flooding the roads.

This middle-aged woman appears correct. The Telegraph found drain water on roads.

Radha has to wade through the dirty water on a daily basis for fetching drinking water from Patna Sahib railway station, around 500m away from her house.

“Our taps have gone dry and there is no other option for us,” she said.

Similar is the case of Dharmendra Kumar, an undergraduate student of the same locality. “I store water before going to college as bringing water from faraway area after the sunset is tough because moving on waterlogged road in the dark becomes a bit risky,” he said.

Manoj Kumar, who runs a cosmetic shop in the nearby area, has to carry his merchandise himself with none of the rickshaw-pullers willing to come to the lane in which his house is.

The continuous waterlogging has started taking toll on the health of the residents.

“My two children are suffering from diarrhoea and the doctors says that it has occurred because of infection from the contaminated water,” said Girija Devi, a resident of Humad Lane.

So desperate are the residents of the locality that some of them are even thinking of selling off their houses and moving to a better locality.

“I would be the first person to sell my house as living in such condition is a punishment,” Navin Kumar of Garhi Par said.

Instead of taking immediate steps to address the problems, a civic body official came with an answer that would not give any hope to the residents facing the trauma.

“A proposal for constructing a new drain for this locality has been sent but actual work would start only after the PMC approves it,” Narendra Nath, an official of the PMC Patna City circle executive office, told The Telegraph.

He, however, refused to speak over the drinking water supply issue claiming that it was not his responsibility.

Even the senior PMC officials are preferring to dodge the questions on the problems of the residents. “The PMC commissioner is out of town and you better talk to the other additional commissioner on this issue,” said Chandrama Singh, one of the two additional commissioners of PMC.

The other commissioner, N.C. Jha, did not respond to repeated calls made on his cellphone.