The scene after the battle between protesters and police near the Vidyasagar Setu toll plaza on Thursday. Picture by Gopal Senapati

Taps remained dry at the Howrah end of Vidyasagar Setu on Friday, 24 hours after residents had protested by blocking the approach to the bridge for two hours, prompting police lathicharge and raids on their homes.

Houses in the area have not received piped water since May. Complaints to the Howrah Municipal Corporation (HMC) authorities have not yielded results. The municipal authorities held several rounds of meetings on Friday to come up with “immediate” and “long-term solutions”.

But no respite is in sight for the nearly 30,000 residents of Tarafdarpara, Kajipara, Munshi Sheikh Taibulla Lane and Natun Basti areas.

They only receive water in a trickle through some roadside taps for an hour each in the morning and evening.

“My wife had to queue up at a tap at 5am to collect water. The only way to get water is to queue up early in the day,” said Sheikh Ashfaq Ali, a resident of Tarafdarpara.

“We are trying our best to solve the problem and restore normal supply of water as soon as possible,” said Samir Saha, mayoral council member (water supply) in the Left-controlled HMC.

The parched areas are in ward 30, represented by CPM councillor Aditi Dasgupta.

Saha claimed that as a stopgap measure, the civic body had sent two tankers to the locality but some Trinamul Congress supporters did not allow water to be distributed. Residents and Trinamul supporters denied the allegations.

Saha also claimed that the corporation had not been able to solve the problem because of non-co-operation by a section of residents who had “always prevented engineers from inspecting pipelines and digging the roads”.

Sahid Habibur Rahman, a resident of Kajipara, said: “This is a lie. Corporation employees have not carried out any inspection over the past several months so the question of resistance does not arise.”

He and his neighbours have to walk 10 minutes to Sarat Chatterjee Road and queue up to fetch water. Those not strong enough have been hiring a rickshaw for the trip.

There is a small well and a tube well in Kajipara but the water is not fit enough to be used.

Mohammad Islam, a resident of Natun Basti, said they had written to Howrah mayor Mamta Jaiswal and got in touch with councillor Dasgupta right after the problem started in May but no measures were taken.