The water crisis in large parts of Shillong city caused by a major leakage of a water pipe at 101 area where a major road construction project is underway has exposed a weak flank in administration – namely the absence of an emergency response system. The destruction of a water pipeline that supplies water to large parts of Shillong while an accidental act required an emergency response system to be in place and for the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED)to respond immediately and restore the water supply within the shortest possible time. For that to happen the PHED should have a standard operating procedure (SOP) in place which it is supposed to follow in case of a natural disaster. The destruction of a major pipeline is nothing less than a disaster and that requires that SOPs are followed.
The SOP includes carrying out timely repairs where necessary. For doing this the Executive Engineer in charge of the district needs to maintain a proper inventory in terms of materials, spare parts needed and skilled manpower. A crack team of trained and skilled human resource team for repairing the fault was imperative. The PHED should have an alternative source to feed the areas that are being starved of water supply. Alternatively, water should have been supplied to the overhead tanks that distribute water to homes. How the PHED manages this should have been well within its SOP. The present water crisis has exposed a major faultline which is that all infrastructure is not in place and the human resources have not been adequately groomed to attend to an emergency vis a vis water supply. When road construction work happens along areas which are also the pathways of major water pipes supplying water to a populated area, such exigencies as have happened at 101 area are inevitable. So why is the PHED caught napping? The Department should have ensured that minimum inventory of water supply and spare parts as may be required by Executive Engineers in the event of a disaster are ready and available and also a roster of staff to be deployed during the disaster. The SOP should include preparation of an Action Plan which encompasses management, coordination, implementation and monitoring of repair work for water supply on an emergency basis. Unfortunately, nothing of the sort has happened and the time for restoring water supply kept getting extended in typical officialdom without any accountability.
It is therefore only fair to the citizenry that the High Court should step in when the government has failed to respond adequately to this water crisis. However, what is likely to happen is that once water is restored everything will be forgotten and things will drift to “business as usual.” Neither the Chief Engineer PHED nor the Minister in Charge of the Department will be held accountable as they should in other more developed states. It is this sheer lack of accountability in the governance system that emboldens those in government to shirk their duties and push the blame elsewhere, knowing that they will never be reprimanded.Here the role of the elected representatives too leaves much to be desired. Many MLAs remained silent spectators to this crisis because it did not affect their constituencies. When will legislators learn their basic responsibilities and call out bad governance?
