Hyderabad, September 24: People living in several colonies in the city are falling ill after being supplied contaminated drinking water. Children and the elderly are the worst affected. Representations have been made to the Water Board and the GHMC, but so far the authorities have ignored the plight of consumers. In one colony, Mahmoodguda, more than 1,000 households have been affected, particularly in the last one week, yet the authorities claim they have not got any complaints.
“We have been facing this problem for the last two or three months. We have represented it to the Water Board, but they are just not responding. In the last one week the level of contamination has increased; we started getting a foul smell from the water and even get coloured water,” says Jagadish Yadav who lives in Mahmoodguda. “Our children have been vomiting and suffering from many other ailments for the last two weeks. We then stopped using the water supplied to us. All the colony households started collecting water from the borewell, hand pumps and tanks,”says another resident, P. Chandra Kala.
The local corporator and other concerned civic representatives have been informed but have taken no action. “When the colony members started uniting on the issue and went public, the water department sent two tankers just to stop the rage of the people, but on Saturday again we will be getting the dirty nala water,” says G. Shiva Kumar. An official of the Water Board said four tankers of drinking water have been sent to this colony and the matter will be attended to soon. But many other colonies, especially in the old city, have also complained about getting contaminated water – a serious charge that is being callously ignored.