JAIPUR: Public health and engineering department (PHED) has started distributing pamphlets at doorstep in Jawahar Nagar slum area requesting people to get legal connection for water supply, but the response is low.
According to the announcement by chief minister Ashok Gehlot, the government has started a process of cutting all the illegal water connections and will regularise them. After 15 days, the process of cutting the illegal water connection will start for which PHED has floated tenders and if the people wouldn’t regularise their connections, it will be difficult for them in ongoing summer season.
In Jawahar Nagar slum area, more than 1,000 illegal water connections are said to be in use which department wants to get regularized, however, just 160 applications have been received in the last 45 days.
According to officials of PHED, they have given a time frame till April 30 after which all those illegal connections will not be regularised.
Manu Sharma, assistant engineer of PHED, said, “We are doing what we can from our side but if the public doesn’t respond properly then those connections will never be regularised. We will start cutting the illegal water pipeline and people will be left without any connection.”
The cost of legal connection is around Rs 4,000 which is why people are not responding to the pleas at present. Although the population of the slum must be more than 25,000 but the waterlines are laid down in just 10 lanes that are adjacent to the highway. Rest fill up the buckets from the nearby areas or public parks