Dirty picture of dry police lines pains its residents

PUNE: The water supply to Shivajinagar Police Lines was restored on Saturday, a day after over 500 police personnel and their spouses staged a protest, but the flow was inadequate to meet the demand of the residents of the quarters.


Hazaribi Ismail Shaikh, a resident of the police lines next to Modern College, said, “There was no water on Thursday and Friday. The supply was restored on Saturday for half-an-hour in low pressure, which was insufficient to complete our household chores.”

Worse than slums

N D Naik, a resident of the police lines premises opposite Modern College, said, “Modern College has 24X7 water supply. Same is the situation at Gaothan on one side and FC Road on the other. Only police lines face water problems. The Shivajinagar Police Lines includes 275 ground floor quarters constructed in 1907 and six buildings with 480 residences next to Modern College besides 140 quarters in the buildings constructed in 1973. We need 12 lakh litres of water daily.”

“In the new buildings, the first two floors get water supply from the Pune Municipal Corporation, while the third and fourth floor residents get it from the overhead tanks. The tanks are in a bad shape and do not even have lids. We once found a dead crow in one of the tanks. Earlier, we used to get regular water supply and were able to manage but now water management is also getting difficult,” he said.

His wife said, “The pressure of water from the overhead tanks is very low and we hardly get any water. On Friday, I had to buy six cans of water worth Rs500 from a grocer to meet our needs. I had a bath for the first time in two days on Saturday as there was no water supply on Thursday and Friday.”

Trash strewn all over

Leelabai Suryavanshi, a resident of the premises developed in 1958, said, “Cleanliness is a grave concern for the residents as no sweeper or waste-picker come to clean the area. None of our problems are recognized by the authorities.

Shaikh said, “Besides water supply, cleanliness and clogged drains have become a major concern for the residents of police lines. Some volunteers had conducted a cleanliness drive here about two months ago under a social initiative. Thereafter, there have been no sweepers to clean the premises. Amid all the odds, we try to at least keep our immediate surroundings clean.”

The garbage strewn along the premises as well as in common spaces such as staircases reinforced the claim of Shaikh.

Naik said, “We had 30 sweepers earlier and now we have only 16 sweepers because no fresh recruitments were made. Overburdened, some of these frequently fall ill. So, it is difficult to maintain the cleanliness around here.”

No one listens

The residents approached the authorities with their miseries. No action was taken to ensure the policemen and their family could lead a healthy life. “We work our heart out to maintain law and order but there is no one to listen to our problems. We, at times, wonder how to strike a balance between looking after our families in shoddy quarters and enforcing law,” said a policeman.