Sambalpur, May 18: Residents of Govindtola at Sambalpur blocked the main road, which connects the city with Bhubaneswar, for more than three hours today in protest against acute shortage of drinking water in the locality. They alleged that all the tube wells in their area have dried up and the public health and engineering department has also stopped supplying water.

“The area, which falls in ward No. 2, has been facing acute water scarcity this summer. Earlier, the residents of Kuluthkani had blocked the road demanding proper water supply. Now, the people of Govindtola also had to take to the streets as the public health and engineering department (PHED) had failed to provide them with required water,” said Rashmita Acharya, councillor of ward No. 2 of Sambalpur Municipality.

“This area had only one tube well. Sambalpur Municipality has recently dug another tube well. But, that too, is not sufficient. We had submitted a written complaint to the executive engineer of the PHED, Sambalpur, mentioning that water supply has virtually been stopped here. But they are yet to respond. We had no other option but to resort to blocking the road to protest against water scarcity,” she said.

Rudra Sarangi, a local resident said: “We have already submitted a written complaint to the PHED mentioning that we were not getting water for the last fifteen days.” “However, the PHED executive engineer has assured us that the department would supply water in tankers until the problem is resolved. We have asked them to sort out the problem in fifteen days. If they fail to resolve the problem with in this timeframe, we will resort to road block again,” Sarangi said.

“The tube well was the only source of drinking water for the 400 families as the PHED had stopped supplying water. But, the tube well is also lying defunct now. We had complained to the concerned department about the defunct tube well. But, attention was not paid to our concern,” said Swapna Bag, a local resident.

Hadibandhu Behera, executive engineer of PHED, Sambalpur, said: “There is a tank with a water storage and supply capacity of 25 lakh litres in that area, through which we are supplying water everyday.” Behera added that they could not supply more than 25 lakh litres of water per day as the tank would not be able to store or supply any more water.

However, Behera assured that the PHED would supply water in tankers in areas suffering from acute water shortage. On the use of motor pumps to draw supply water, Behara said: “It is not possible to check which housing units are drawing water through motor pumps. But in the monsoon, the PHED will take steps to check this activity.”