Locals in Amravati district of Maharashtra forced to drink dirty water

Amid the summer heatwave and rising high temperatures in various parts of the country several villages in the Maharashtras Amravati district especially Melghat region are experiencing a severe water crisis forcing residents to collect water from polluted sources resulting in health hazardsThe residents of Mariampur village in Amravati Village alleged that they are forced to collect drinking water by digging pits on the bank of the polluted pond The locals have further criticised government for taking no action regarding the severe water crisis in the village The locals alleged govrnment citing nonfunctional government water tanks and absence of adequete water tankers sent in their villageSubhash Sawalkar a villager said Our village has only one pond and that too polluted We wake up around 4 am and go to the pond and collect water for our children It takes about 23 hours to fill the pits we dig People queue up to collect this polluted water which causes health problems for our children Just today I had to take my children to the doctor for medicineThere is no tanker supply and we dont even receive water from the taps We come here early in the morning and sometimes we have to stay until 1011 pm just to collect this dirty water The water crisis is creating a lot of trouble and no one is taking action upon it added Phulkai Belsare an elderly resident of MariampurCan nobody see what is happening in Mariampur From the Municipal Committee to the water department everyone is just sleeping We face a severe water crisis Other villages have government taps and borewells but we dont even have those We had one facility for tap water but that was also damaged I demand that the government repair our taps She further added We wait for hours to collect dirty water from these pits which is harmful to our health There is no tanker supply or any other assistance Jasmine another villager said expressing her frustrationAmravati falls within the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra Due to climate vulnerability Vidarbha is one of the regions worst hit by water crisis and it has been a long standing issue in the Vidarbha region Due to lack of adequate water in this region for multiple purpose including farming it oftrn attributed to high rate of farmer suicides in the regionAlong with Maharashtra several other parts of the country are suffering from a severe water crisis due to extreme heatwave Earlier on Thursday various parts of Delhi suffered water crisis The residents had to wait for hours in a long queue for water tankersThe residents of the Geeta Colony in the East Delhi district have raised concerns regarding the inadequate supply of water from the government As reported by ANI they complained about government providing only half the needed amount of waterA resident of Geeta Colony Vinay told ANI We are facing a severe water crisis Our locality has a population of around 30004000 people but the government sends only half the required number of tankers He added Although a tanker comes daily but in this scorching heat the demand for water has significantly increased Sometimes they reduce the amount of water in the tanker due to which we suffer a lot While in the absence of tankers the wealthier residents can buy water but the poorer ones cannot due to which they have to drink dirty water which leads to illnessWe have complained to the MLA of the area multiple times but we have never received a valid response No one is listening to us Vinay further added expressing his frustrationAn elderly resident at Geeta Colony shared I usually come after 1015 days sometimes even a month but as always I dont get waterShabru Khatun a resident of the colony said that they have faced a lot of problems regarding water in this area They get only one tanker for the entire area and the tanker water is used for drinking and cooking purposes Sometimes we dont even get the tanker and we are forced to buy bottled water Shabru Khatun told ANIWhile Siliguri is also added to the list of cities facing extreme water crisis the resident of Shilguri are requested by Shilguri Municipal Corporation to not drink the water supplied by the corporation due to its contaminationMunicipal Corporation Mayor of Siliguri Gautam Dev said After receiving a report that found the BOD level is slightly high we requested the people of Siliguri not to take the supply water for drinking purposes until further notice On Thursday people in Siliguri were spotted standing in long queues before private drinking water suppliers to buy water amid the severe water crisis in Shilguri