Gauhati East parched as Guwahati Municipal Corporation fails to supply potable water

GUWAHATI: Several localities under the Gauhati East assembly constituency have been reeling under water crisis for the last several months as the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) has failed to supply potable water from the existing reservoir citing technical snag.
Gauhati East, which has a population of over 2 lakh, is the only complete urban constituency in the state.
The Guwahati Jal Board, which is working on the South Central Guwahati Water project that covers almost half of the city, is yet to provide household water connections to the families in these worst-affected localities, including Amiyanagar and Rudranagar.
The construction of the project began in 2009 and is yet to be commissioned. The board is currently working on the first phase of the project, in which over 3,000 households are supposed to get water connections.
The residents have already applied for connections and have paid the application fees a couple of months ago, but are yet to witness any development.
“The GMC’s supply water was regular till February-March. A massive landslide then hit the water reservoir atop the Navagraha hill in May, and the civic body completely stopped supply for two months. Since then, the supply has become very irregular. People now fetch water from pits or borewells,” said Nalini Bania, a resident of Rudranagar.
Bania added that Jal board officials conducted a survey in the locality last month, but has not taken any concrete step till date.
According to the GMC data, only 30% of the city’s total households, which is nearly 3 lakh, have access to potable drinking water. The rest of them have to depend on private water suppliers or bore wells for their daily needs.
Nearly 1 lakh households in the hilly areas of the city, where there is no motorable road, have to depend on pits for water, it added.
Sources in GMC said the civic body will stop supplying water completely in the next one year, and the service will fully be operated by the Jal board.
“The GMC has been withdrawing water supply services slowly from the localities where Jal Board has provided water connections. So, the GMC does not focus on improving water supply services any more,” the source added.