QUEPEM
All it took was a bit of courage and bucketful of dirty water for a resident from Hodar-Xeldem, Curchorem to awaken PWD officials at the Curchorem Water Department on Thursday, prompting them to look into tap water problems confronting villagers for five days.
Angered by PWD authorities for not solving their water woes, a resident marched to the Curchorem PWD (water section) office with a bucketful of dirty water, forcing the department to depute plumbers to fix the problem.
“We were getting dirty water from the taps for the last five days and we had complained to the officials concerned, but they failed to take any corrective action,” said the resident, who did not wish to be named.
Hodar has about 60 houses and residents have been complaining that the dirty water from the taps has been unfit for consumption and even for washing clothes.
“I lost my patience as PWD officials had failed to rectify the problem for the last five days and went to the PWD office with a bucketful of dirty water to drive home the point,” the resident added.
When contacted, Curchorem Water Department Junior Engineer Shailesh Usgaonkar said the problem was due to accumulation of residue in the pipeline.
“Since the water supply pipeline ends in the village, it is bound to accumulate residue there. The problem is being solved as staff was deployed to flush the pipeline and rectify the problem from Wednesday night,” Usgaonkar said.
Asked if they have any schedule to flush the pipeline if they are aware of the problem every few days, Usgaonkar replied: “We do not have any schedule as such, but we flush the pipeline when residents complain to us about the problem.”
