John Wilbert & Rabindranath Biswas
Port Blair, Nov 29: Residents from Guptapara and Manjery village of Port Blair have been complaining about contaminated drinking water supply in the area.
Following the matter, the residents of this area reportedly complained to the Office of the APWD and said that the water being supplied to this area tastes salty and is raw (untreated) and, as a result of which a few people reportedly fell sick in these villages.
Mr. Subrata Kumar Mondal a villager of Guptapara alleged that the drinking water being supplied by the APWD for the last 8 to 9 months is raw (untreated water). A few people in the region suffered health issues like dysentery, diarrhea, stomach cramps, vomiting and skin allergy due to this unprocessed water, he claimed.
This is happening as the water is being supplied from Rutland water project, he claimed.
Mr. Mondal verbally complained at the JE’s Office, Guptapara and after the complaint, the staff manning the tank, cleaned the Phoongibalu tank; but after a few days the situation returned to its earlier ugly state, he further decried.
Earlier, Mr. Subrata wrote a letter to the Pradhan, Gram Panchayat Guptapara and Chief Secretary, A & N Administration on 22 Oct 2022 and urged them to take appropriate measures in the matter so that, instead of polluted water, the villagers of Guptapara and Manjery get pure and safe potable water.
When contacted, Mr. Arun Kumar, Executive Engineer, APWD told Andaman Sheekha that these allegations are baseless. “We received some information a couple of times stating that untreated water was being supplied to the residents of this area; and in response, we took prompt action and sent our officials and ground staff to these areas to conduct the test of the water and, after the necessary test, the officials themselves drank the water and found that water is pure and did not find any salinity in the water. After conducting the test, the detailed water test report was shared with the Higher Authorities,” he added..
When Andaman Sheekha contacted Mr. Durlav Das, Pradhan Gram Panchayat Guptapara and wanted to further know about the matter, the Pradhan said that some villagers had approached him and said that they were unhappy with water tests conducted by the concerned officials of the APWD, and they demanded that the water tests are conducted in front of the villagers so that they could see and taste the water in the presence of the officials if the water is potable.
While APWD has taken all desired steps as per the norms to check the quality of water, villagers of the region are still not happy, showing something is wrong with the water, supplied to the region and hence the general public is now demanding another round of tests of water, that too infront of all the public.
