Residents take ill; DJB unaware of dirty water supply

The sale of packaged drinking water has suddenly shot up in Lajpat Nagar-II in the last 10 to 12 days. The reason: Supply of dirty water by the Delhi Jal Board.

The sale of packaged drinking water has suddenly shot up in Lajpat Nagar-II in the last 10 to 12 days. The reason: Supply of dirty water by the Delhi Jal Board (DJB).

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The C-Block in Lajpat Nagar-II has about 170 families, who have been getting dirty, stinking water for the past 10 days. Several complaints made by residents, however, have not yielded any result.

Rajendra Pal Singh, the 18-year-old son of local resident Amarjeet Singh, Unknowingly consumed the dirty supply water a week ago. He now suffers from severe stomach ache and high fever.

And even though the sale of packaged drinking water has increased, Sumit Dawar, a supplier, is unhappy.

Two of his sons are suffering from stomach disorders, owing to drinking DJB supply water.

"Many people are now surviving on packaged water, which is why sales have shot up. But my family is also a victim of this situation," he added.

"We have registered several complaints regarding this but there is still no let-up in our woes," said Vijay Narang, another resident.

Dr Prakesh Jhurani told Hindustan Times, "The water is so dirty that we fear it might cause stomach infections, cholera, typhoid and other water-borne diseases among the residents."

Failing to draw the attention of DJB authorities, a delegation of local residents met Tarvendra Singh Marwa, a Congress MLA from the locality on Thursday and sought his help in the matter.

Marwa said, "I will bring the problem to the chief minister's notice. I don't understand what is taking the DJB so much time to work it out."

A team of DJB workers, who came to the spot to identify the source of the contaminated water, could not identify the problem, till the time of filing this report.

"I will look into the matter soon," said DJB CEO Ramesh Negi when HT posed a query in this regard.