Water supply disruption leaves Chandigarh residents high and dry

Pumping of raw water from Kajauli to Chandigarh was stopped due to an emergency shutdown by the PSPCL for erecting a tower on the Kharar-Mohali power line

Water supply in Chandigarh was disrupted due to maintenance work on Monday, leaving residents at the receiving end. Many residents said they hadn’t been getting enough water for around a week now, and the authorities were failing to act on it.

Municipal corporation officials said the maintenance work will stop on Tuesday but it might take till Wednesday for the supply to normalise.(HT photo for representation)

The pumping of raw water from Kajauli to Chandigarh was stopped due to an emergency shutdown by the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) for erecting a tower on the Kharar-Mohali power line. Municipal corporation (MC) officials said the work will stop on Tuesday but it might take till Wednesday for the supply to normalise.

Even on Monday, while residents were assured of normal water supply at least in the morning, many said it started by around 7am, instead of 4am, and went out by 9am. President of the Sector 41A LIG Duplex residents’ welfare association (RWA) Vijay Chikarsal said, “The water supply was delayed and the pressure was so low that our overhead tank did not fill up.” However, the water woes for Sector 41A have been continuing for about a week now. Chikarsal said he had even written to their local area councillor, Hardeep Singh, asking that the water pressure be improved but to no avail.

Jyoti Bhardwaj, a resident of Sector 47, said they had been facing water problems throughout this month. “After we kept asking the MC officials to fix it, the water supply was restored for about ten days, but now again we are facing an issue,” he said. General secretary of the Sector 33B RWA, Kuljinder Singh Sra, said the supply had been erratic this month and often could not even reach the first and second floors of their houses.

Chandigarh Resident Associations Welfare Federation (CRAWFED) has also written to the MC commissioner KK Yadav about this. Chairman Hitesh Puri said that CRAWFED members will approach the commissioner regarding this on Tuesday.

MC officials tasked with supplying water to the city said they hadn’t received any complaints from these areas. “There is no problem from the supply side. Maybe some local-level faults could be causing a hindrance which we will get checked,” they said, adding that the use of unauthorised pumps on the main water supply can also lead to such problems.