Hubli-Dharwad Municipal Corporation members slam L&T for irregular drinking water supply

DHARWAD: Lashing out at L&T, which has been tasked with infrastructure development for 24x7 drinking water and also water supply, councillors, cutting across party lines, charged L&T officials with being negligent in their work, and demanded that the agency be divested of the responsibility.
The issue consumed major part of the HDMC’s general body meeting held here on Friday.The members, raising the drinking water issue during the zero hour, alleged that several wards in the twin cities, which were getting water once in five days, were now being supplied once in 10-12 days, and in some cases, once in 15 days for just 2-3 hours.
They further said the water pressure was also low and people were unable to reserve water for next one week. Private water tankers are charging nothing less than Rs 1,000 per tanker, and people are fed-up with erratic water supply, they said.
Responding to this, HDMC commissioner B Gopal Krishna said there is no drinking water issue in 11 demo zones (continuous water supply) and also in 25 wards which have partial 24x7 facility. But at intermittent wards (numbering 46), drinking water problem has surfaced.
During a meeting on December 3, L&T was asked to supply water once in five days. But it has been delayed up to 10 days. L&T is facing technical issues which would be resolved in the next 15 days, the commissioner added. The corporators, who were in no mood to accept the commissioner’s version, urged the mayor to divest L&T of the responsibility and hand over the task back to KUWS&DB.