TURA, March 9: The setting in of summer season coupled with six-hour load-shedding every day has led to a severe water crisis across Tura town for well over two weeks as localities are grappled with water shortage, compelling the citizenry to turn to private suppliers for refilling their tanks.
West Garo Hills Deputy Commissioner Ram Singh told The Shillong Times that Tura town requires as much as 25 million litre of water every day. However, the arrival of the dry season has led to closure of all gravity water sources of Phase 1 in Rongkhon, Phase 3 from Didare River and the augmented source from Ganol River. The load-shedding every night has further compounded the situation because during the dry season water is pumped from beneath the ground as part of Phase 2 project of Tura water supply.
“With full power supply, we were getting 14.6 million litre of water. But now with six hours of load-shedding, we have a water deficit of almost 2.5 million litre as a result of which, supply of water is taking place only once a day,” informed the deputy commissioner.
drying up due to the dry season and the fast-depleting forest cover. (ST)
Since the pumping station of the PHE department is located at Edenbari, outskirts of Tura, the deputy commissioner has written to the chairman and managing director of the Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited, seeking exemption of load-shedding for Edenbari pump house area.
“The PHE department is presently supplying water from Ganol River by pumping at the Edenbari pump house where 24-hour power supply is required to run the pumping machine. However, due to current load-shedding from 0:00 hrs to 06:00 hrs, water supply has been greatly affected,” the deputy commissioner said in his letter to the MeECL chief, while requesting exemption from power cut at the station area at the earliest.
The areas that have been afflicted with dearth of water are Araimile, New Tura, Tura Market, Hawakahana and its adjoining areas.
Long queues are witnessed outside public taps and in front of water supply tankers as people are looking for all possible means to get their hands on this precious resource.
The fast-depleting forest cover, particularly in the catchment areas due to continuous deforestation, has further aggravated the water crisis in Tura and the surrounding villages.