Kalimpong/Algarah:28th Sept

The unending water problem of Kalimpong has been creating frights among the people when the taps of the houses here ran no water since past 8 days, the water departments and the representatives of Morcha today visited 3rd mile, Mirik, Algarah block to investigate and understand the situation of water crisis in town. The implicit state of affairs in 3rd mile, Mirik is the revived (mild) landslides in places where monsoon’s torrential rain stroke few months ago. The landslide occurred in July/August inevitably damaged the pipelines which was used to supply water in Kalimpong town, the departments (Neora and PHE) in the other hand iced the situation with a temporal settlement using plastic pipes that leaked and moistened the damaged land inviting fresh landslides there. The local people unanimously decided to stop the supply of water in the town to be in the safer side by avoiding the mild avalanches. When talked to the people there, one Dal Badhur Subba said that they have nothing against the water supply to the town but expects the concerned departments to come up with a permanent solution, ‘The department should take an initiative to solve the problems of pipelines as soon as possible for our agricultural land and other properties (houses) have been damaged’ Said Subba. However, Dal Badhur and Kalyan Subba’s agricultural land has been damaged encountering fresher slides due to the leaked water affecting more on the ‘already injured’ land, the result of the same landslide have damaged another Buddha Raj Subba’s and Ajay Subba’s houses. They now feel that this is the consequence of the department’s carelessness and expects compensation from PHE and Neora (Water works) They also told the representatives of Morcha about the compensation where the Sub-Division Morcha President Nordhen Lama assured the victims that he will have a word with the GTA chief about the compensations, ‘These pipelines are the lifelines of Kalimpong’ said Lama showing the pipes. ‘I will talk about the people’s demand to the GTA Chief and I expect the departments to work efficiently henceforth’ added the president. Morcha have also assigned two people to look after the problems of both sides i.e flexible water supply in Kalimpong and restraining fresher slides in 3rd mile till the permanent solution is made. Meanwhile, Anil Chettri, the executive engineer of PHE said that they have talked to their higher authority about the permanent restoration of pipelines and flexible flow of water and guaranteed that the problems (of both sides) will be solved soon. However, Mayog Dey, the Assistant Engineer of Water Works said that 8 lack’ gallons of water will be released to Kalimpong by this evening.

In the same context, the now independent MLA, H.B Chettri met the PHE Minister Subrato Mukherjee today and submitted an application highlighting the water-problems in Kalimpong, ‘I told the Minister that there is no supply of water in Kalimpong since last 7-8 days and it may continue for a couple of more days, I also talked about the unclean state of water which we are receiving’ wrote Chettri in a text message to this reporter . It was also known that Chettri highlighted the dual authority i.e Neora being under west Bengal and PHE under GTA as the core problem of unmanaged distribution, ‘I suggested him to bring the entre water supply and distribution under one department’ added the text.