It is time to sing a requiem, I feel, for the ambitious and long standing dreams and assurances of former chief minister Manohar Parrikar of providing a 24x7 drinking water supply to Goa, given the grave shortage of drinking water in the entire state, all the year round. It is really shocking that a small state like Goa with around 7 catchment areas and storage dams is not able to meet the daily requirements of drinking water of its residents on some pretext or the other.
Yet, the Goa government keeps promising a 24 -hour drinking water supply, and 16,000 litres of free drinking water to every household. And to compound the misery we now have unscrupulous water tanker operators charging a whopping Rs 1,100/- for a tanker load of drinking water, and a tanker mafia that supplies drinking water in the same tanker that is also used to transport sewage. What a pathetic state we have reached,to say the least. It is therefore time we forget about a 24 -hour water supply and focus instead on a supply that will at least reach our water meters at a reasonable pressure and fill up our underground water tanks in a span of 2-3 hours.
