Water crisis deepens in Baijnath, Palampur

Our Correspondent

PALAMPUR, June 7

With the onset of summer, the drinking water crisis has deepened in the Palampur region. There is an acute shortage of drinking water in several villages of the Palampur and Baijnath subdivisions. Most of the villages have not received the supply for the past four days. Though the Irrigation and Public Health Department is well conversant with the situation, no efforts have been made yet to restore the supply of drinking water in the affected villages.

Hundreds of villagers from ward number 7 of Baijnath today lodged a strong protest and threatened to sit on dharna in front of the office of the local Executive Engineer. Villagers said they had time and again requested the IPH authorities and a written complaint was also submitted to the local Junior Engineer but no efforts were made to restore the supply of drinking water. The area has been without drinking water for the past one week, they said.

Likewise, residents of the Lohana area in Palampur also lodged a protest over the shortage of drinking water. Ishwar Dass Sood, Pankaj Sood, Satyanand, Nirmala, Suresh and Surinder Gupta said they had not received water supply for the past 10 days.

Despite repeated requests, the water supply was not restored. They said the IPH Department had already stacked pipes in the area three months ago to replace the old water supply lines but they are yet to be installed. They had also met senior officers, but in vain.

Executive Engineer, IPH, Sanjay Thakur said the matter had come to his notice and the assistant engineer had been directed to look into the matter and meet the affected residents and solve the issue immediately.