BALASORE: Residents of Junbalada village within Basta police limits blocked NH-60 with empty water pitchers on Monday protesting acute drinking water crisis and administrative apathy, disrupting traffic movement for around one hour in the morning.
Jharana Dalai of the village said most residents of Junbalada, which has a population of 1,400 are poor and belong to SC and ST communities. The government had dug four tube-wells in three colonies of the village a few years back. While two were rendered defunct, the other two are not enough to cater to the needs of the villagers. The RWSS department made provisions to supply piped water to the village but that too failed to serve the purpose due to technical glitches a fortnight back.
The villagers said the problem of water scarcity is perennial though it becomes acute every year from March onwards. Dalai said despite frequent meetings with RWSS officials, the BDO and sarpanch of Kulida gram panchayat, little has been done to assuage the woes of the villagers. “We were forced to block traffic on the NH as a mark of protest against officials of RWSS department and the sarpanch, who have remained callous. We understand that blocking traffic on the highway may have caused inconvenience to commuters but we had no other option,” she said.
The protest was called off after RWSS junior engineer Vinod Das and Kulida sarpanch Sunil Senapati assured the protestors that the defective tube-wells will be made ready and piped water supply restored to the village soon.