Irked by acute water shortage, about 300 residents of Kharghar staged a protest outside the CIDCO office in Sector 4 and prevented the entry of officers on Friday.
The protest was led by BJP corporators of Ward No. 5 — Leena Garad and Harshada Upadhyay. Ms. Garad said, “There is constant water cuts in Kharghar. Despite assurances, the issue remains unresolved. CIDCO is busy developing new nodes. Where will they find water to provide for these nodes?”
Ms. Upadhyay said, “We are not going to stop here. We will soon meet with the managing director of CIDCO. We want solutions, not assurances.”
Prakash Nilewad, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Zone II), said that no action was taken against the protesters. “We provided police protection to the CIDCO officers to prevent any no untoward incidents.”
Dileep M. Bokade, executive engineer (WS-1) said, “A series of unfortunate incidents led to disruption in water supply. First, a transformer that supplied power to water pumps was damaged when a tree fell on it during heavy rains. The other transformer could not bear the additional load and water supply was disrupted for five days.”
Mr. Bokade added, “Once the transformer was repaired, a fuse got burnt. This disrupted the supply of water again. Despite such odds, we are doing our best to restore water supply. For four days, we have been receiving 10 mld of water from the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation.”
Indumati Kumar, a resident of Tharwani Heritage in Sector 7, said: “My society spent ₹13 lakh on water tankers last year. Every flat also buys extra water to meet drinking and cooking needs. We pay tax and water charges, yet we are deprived of water.”
Meena Gawande, a resident of Arjun Society in Sector 4, said: “We get water supply from CIDCO only for 30 minutes every day. For the rest of the day, we are dependent on water tankers. Where do tankers get their water from?”
