Thirsty Gaya: All eyes on high court now

GAYA: With the then urban development minister Prem Kumar's promise to bring Ganga water to quench the thirst of Gayaites remaining a non starter and former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi's commitment to get a low height dam constructed in river Falgu near Bitho village to prevent alarming dipping of water table in Gaya town and adjoining areas proving to be false, all eyes are now fixed on the Patna High court.The high court is scheduled to hear a PIL on Gaya water crisis on 29 April.
Earlier, the High Court directed the Principal Secretary PHED to submit an action plan to tackle Gaya water crisis. 60 pc of the nearly half a million Gayaites do not have access to tap water and they depend on ground water. The ground water is withdrawn manually, mechanically and electrically depending on the economic status of the water users.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has taken a pledge to provide tap water to everybody and the glaring scarcity of tap water in an important town like Gaya puts the CM resolve to real test.
The PIL filed by activist Brajnandan Pathak alleges that the concerned officials have been very indifferent to the need to make water available to the citizens of Gaya and even in localities where tap water is being supplied the quality of water remains poor.
According to Pathak, the private company that executed multi crore schemes to provide municipal water to areas like AP Colony, Rampur, Chiraiyatand, Chanakyapuri, White House Compound, New Karimganj and Aliganj etc severely bungled and pipes were not laid in several areas.
The quality of mega water tank built by the company also remains poor with leakages both from the tank and allegedly sub standard pipes resulting in avoidable wastage of scarce water. Pathak told TOI that the PHED cannot wash its hands off by just black listing the company. The private company that apparently bungled in scheme execution should be criminally prosecuted for breach of trust and other criminal offences, says Pathak.
The Gaya Municipal Corporation was supposed to take over the facility created by the private company for maintenance. The GMC Commissioner Vijay Kumar, earlier said that on account of the semi finished nature of the project and apparently poor quality of work, the Municipal body was not in a position to adopt what many believe to be an still born baby.
The GMC officials also say that as per the terms of the contract, the private company was supposed to lower the 50 HP submersible pumps to a depth of 80 ft on the Falgu bed. The company lowered the pump only upto a depth of 40 ft, thereby making the pumps virtually redundant in summer.