PANJIM: While the people of Panjim have been waiting for hours no end, for a single drop of water, the IAS (Indian Administrative Services) officers have been emptying entire tankers into their homes by taking advantage of their positions.
After the residents of Altinho government quarters complained that they were yet to get any PWD tankers even though they had made several calls to the helpline, HERALD spoke to the PWD engineers who said tankers have been sent everywhere as per the requirement.
Herald also began its hunt to see where the tankers were actually going and the revelations were startling.
One tanker was seen emptying its entire capacity of water into the house of one IAS officer at E-1 quarters. Not only this, there were three fire brigade officials who were helping the IAS officer to fill up the overhead tank at his official bungalow. What was even more shocking was that the fire brigade officials were using the official fire brigade pump, which is normally used for dousing fires.
When contacted, Fire Officer Ajit Kamat said the Fire Brigade had not given any water tankers. “We only gave them operators and a pump as government quarters do not have sumps,” he said. None of the PWD Engineers wanted to speak about this episode as they said they were unaware of any such thing.
A source in PWD however, explained that IAS officials directly threaten to suspend government workers, if the water is not supplied to them through these tankers. “We have no choice but to obey their orders,” the source revealed.
When contacted, PWD Minister Deepak Pauskar said that he wasn’t unaware about the same or anything like this. “I will look into this. As of now, I have no idea,” he said.
Water supply to the Tiswadi, especially Panjim, has stopped for the last five days ever since the water pipeline broke down at Khandepar due to the landslide at the site.
The PWD said that water to Panjim would resume by Monday night as the capital city is their priority.
Water supply to the capital is being done by PWD tankers, which have been pressed into service. However, the residents say the water supplied is not enough. “The water tanker is coming at odd times. But even then, however late or early, it becomes difficult to get even a bucket of water due to the long queues,” said one Adam Khan of St Inez.
One Santosh Naik of Altinho said the PWD tankers have been going directly to the places of IAS officials where they empty these tanks, right from the first day of the water shortage. “We are left waiting for hours together,” he said.
