Water woes
Residents of several localities in the city are been supplied with turbid water for over one week now and no one knows why.
The Executive Engineer, PHE, Mawphlang Division, had issued a notification in the local dailies announcing that water supply to the city would be disrupted on August 31 and September 1 due to release of water from the newly-laid gravity main pipe, owing to which the water may be turbid.
However, over ten days later, the supply of turbid and non-potable water continues.
Some residents have started using the old trick of using potash alum to clean the water through sedimentation.
Residents have been quite irked over the turbid affair but don’t know whom to approach for redressal of their grievance.
In the meantime, supply of the murky water continues in the city.
A privileged road
The winding road leading to the temporary Legislative Assembly House at Rilbong is truly an enviably privileged road worthy of a VIP tag.
Popularly known as “Zigzag Road”, like all non-arterial roads in town, has its own fair share of wear and tear. Rain takes its own toll every year, bringing in their wake countless potholes while the culverts, at times, give away as rain-soaked soil loosen up. The rainy season also invariably ensures luxuriant growth of thicket that tends to lean towards the path, posing obstruction to sight. The drains invariably disappear under the slush and creeping weeds. The scene is familiar and predictably same in most parts of the town at this time of the year.
The exception is that Zigzag Road (officially named after ex-MLA Ardhendu Chaudhuri) gets a facelift before every Assembly session.
Prior to the current Autumn session, all potholes have been diligently filled up, thickets and weeds cleaned up, while the fallen culverts repaired and spruced up by providing them with a coat of paint, giving the particular stretch of the road a prim and proper look.
For this derivative privilege, how much the users of the road wish that the Legislative Assembly functions from the present building for all time to come!
COVID-inappropriate behaviour
More often than not we hear, “Follow all COVID protocols”; this has been increasingly advocated since the onset of the pandemic.
But despite the crisis, there is a sense of letting down the guard as and when the COVID scenario is in the pink.
Save the wearing of mask, this time its thermal screening or body temperature scanning in the city.
The SJ team has observed that across several commercial establishments, thermal screening is conducted only for the sake of it. When, at some places, the person conducting the thermal screening is completely unbothered to even look at the output of the scanner, in others, there’s only a chair and, on top of it, the temperature gun; simply put, the person tasked with the job is missing.
Initially, temperatures of visitors would be noted down, but even that has been done away with in select places.
Isn’t this too a version of COVID-appropriate behaviour? Nonetheless, it should be appreciated that at some venues, people with body temperature beyond normal have been disallowed to enter. Kudos to those complying with the SOPs!
However, let us not forget the days when the commercial stores were closed; needless to say, nobody was at all gleeful. Let’s pull up our socks then, shall we?
Footpaths, you say?
Whenever you come across the term ‘footpath’, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? Apparently a roadside pavement where people walk? Well, that is indeed an ideal definition of footpath.
However, scenes from select parts of Shillong lately seem to have altered the meaning of the term, for many vehicles have started to rule anew not only the roads but also the footpaths.
Take, for example, a scene from Dhankheti, the picture of which is affixed, where a vehicle is seen brazenly parked, covering almost entire portion of a stretch of the footpath.
The SJ team witnessed how pedestrians were coerced into walking on the busy road just because the vehicle blocked the way.
Albeit the nerve-racking scenes that have resurfaced now may not be new to Shillongites — these scenes have been raising many eyebrows for quite some time now — what is discombobulating is that the practice continues to prevail, much to the dismay of pedestrians.