‘No water in heat’: EWS Colony residents protest

Ludhiana: Erratic water supply in the midst of a heat wave elicited a protest on Tajpur Road on Sunday. Claiming that water supply had been poor for the past two months, residents of EWS Colony and surrounding areas staged a protest which started early in the morning here.
An MC official, however, rubbished the claim of erratic supply and said water could not be supplied only since Saturday evening due to a power failure. People came to the protest with empty buckets to highlight their predicament. They also hit out at Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Daljit Grewal and other elected representatives. A resident of EWS Colony, Raju, said they were being forced to visit neighbouring localities just to get water for daily use. “Now when temperature has increased, water is especially important, but we are not getting even basic facilities,” he said.
Another resident, Gopal Das, said surrounding areas like Jagdishpura and Kishore Nagar had also been facing the problem of inadequate water supply. He said people had to locate temples or dairies to get water. “In this scorching heat, if we do not get the water supply, how will we survive?” he said. Another resident, Gurmukh Singh, said another group of residents had protested outside MC office near Shingaar Cinema recently over the same problem,. “But our protsts are not proving beneficial as he problem is not getting resolved,” he said.
When contacted, MC executive engineer (operation and maintenance cell) Ranbir Singh said, “It was due to power failure in area that we could not supply water since Saturday night. Tube wells were made functional as soon as the power supply was restored.”