SASARAM: Lack of proper water supply has been a perennial problem for the residents of Sasaram assembly segment, particularly those living in the town area, since several decades.
According to 2011 census, the population of Sasaram was 2.47 lakh. Official sources said Sasaram town requires 14 lakh gallons of potable water per day. With the existing supply system, which is at least 60-year-old, the public health engineering department (PHED) supplies only two lakh gallons of water to the town.
PHED assistant engineer Narendra Bhargav said the department provided water supply connections to its fullest capacity decades ago. “Way back in 1990, the department stopped giving new water supply connections because its capacity had been exhausted,” he said.
Old-timers said the water supply pipeline was laid when Sasaram was a sub-divisional headquarters town of erstwhile Shahabad district. Shahabad was bifurcated to create Rohtas and Bhojpur districts with Sasaram as the HQ of Rohtas district in 1972. “The population of the town has since grown manifold, but the water supply system was neither renovated nor replaced with a new one,” said octogenarian Shamim Khan, a resident of municipal ward number 25 of Sasaram.
Bihar Urban Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (BUIDCO) not long ago was assigned the task of conducting a survey to assess the potable water requirement of Sasaram. “Approximately 75% of the households were found to be bereft of tap water supply. The town immediately requires 21,000 and odd water supply connections,” BUIDCO assistant engineer Jeetendra Prasad said.
Meena Devi, a Madhya Pradesh native and wife of a Sasaram businessman residing in Nawratna Bazar locality, said her family had faced potable water crisis perennially during the 40 years of her marriage.