Julie Devi, a resident of Main Road in Hazaribagh town, was in for shock when she opened the tap for filling up bottles two days ago. The water that the employee of Central Coalfields Limited, Charhi, collected for cooking and other household chores was murky. The quality remained the same over the next two days.
“Anybody could say that the water, supplied by the drinking water and sanitation department (DWSD) from Tower-1 situated near Indrapuri Chowk, is contaminated. We will fall ill if we consume this water,” said Julie.
The new year has begun with water woes for the 50,000-odd residents of Hazaribagh town. The people of Okni, New Area and Malviya Marg area, who also depend on Tower-1 that gets water from Charwa Dam, have come up with similar complaints.
“We are completely dependent on the water supplied by the DWSD and have no other option. Hence, I kept the water in a bucket for sometime till all the dust particles and dirt settled down at the bottom. Thereafter, I used the water for daily chores,” said Saraswati Devi, who works as a helping hand at a well-known gynaecologist’s home.
The residents claimed that DWSD had failed to filter the water before supplying it. “Charwa Dam has a proper filtration plant to sieve out the impurities. But I don’t think the authorities went through the filtration process. This shows their negligent attitude,” a resident of Hazaribagh town said.
Doctors have already sounded an alarm, asking people to filter the water properly before consumption as contaminated water would cause health hazards.
However, Vijendra Prasad Singh, junior engineer of DWSD who posted at Charwa filtration plant, said there was no fault on their part.
“Filtration of water was indeed carried out. It may happen that the supply pipes in the areas concerned have developed cracks as a result of which the water has got contaminated. But we have not received any complaint in this regard even though this problem concerns the municipal board and not us,” he said.
The junior engineer explained that the municipal board never repaired the supply pipes and instead, the onus fell on them. “We will check the fault and repair it as soon as possible,” Singh promised.
