Team Herald
SANGUEM: While most of South Goa receives their drinking water from the Selaulim Reservoir in Sanguem taluka, families residing only a few kilometres away from the reservoir have been reeling under an acute drinking water shortage for the past three days.
Blaming the lackadaisical attitude of local PWD officials for their ordeal, villager Anil Kakodkar said that the residents of Villian, Kumari and Bombdimol villages have been left without drinking water supply for three days as the bore wells from where the water is supplied to the villages have developed a major fault.
Sources said that there are two bore wells in the village. However, the three pumps of one of the bore wells have broken down with respect to one bore well, a total number of three pumps inside the well have already broken down. The PWD had installed another pump in order to restart the supply of water to the villages, but the pump did not work, leaving the locals high and dry.
The angry villagers told Herald that the PWD staff does not have the technical expertise to remove and repair the existing three defunct pumps inside the well, and that the installation of the fourth pump has only caused more problems in pumping out water for supply to the villagers.
As an alternative, the Department had made arrangements to supply drinking water to the villagers through water tankers on Thursday, but failed to send the tankers on Friday, they complained.
The PWD officials on Friday visited the site after the villagers persisted, and assured them that water supply would be restored by late evening.
However, till 8 00 pm, their taps continued to remain dry. The villagers have now threatened to lead an agitation to the PWD office to pressure the staff into repairing the pump on emergency basis.
