DRIVE AGAINST ILLEGAL USE OF WATER

Drive against theft of water in Cooch Behar

The heritage town of Cooch Behar is suffering from acute problem of drinking water for a long. The situation turns worse in summer months. The condition of supply of drinking water through pipelines is very poor in this town consisting of twenty wards. Residents of different wards have to suffer a lot due to poor water supply. Very often the municipal authority have to supply water by sending water tanks to the wards. Among the major reasons behind the problem one is theft of water.

Cooch Behar Municipality has adopted a plan to stop theft of water in different wards in the town. According to the plan they are to start a drive to detect residences with illegal pumps sucking out water from main pipeline. They will also identify houses having unauthorised connection of water. Once identified the offenders will have to pay fine ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 50,000.

Earlier, the municipal authority warned the offenders to stop theft of water by illegal connections and by using pumps to suck water from main pipeline. They put hoardings at different areas in the town and released advertisements in newspapers to alert the citizens over the consequences of illegal use of pumps and unauthorised connections. But, it yielded almost no result. At Last, finding no alternative they started alerting citizens over loudspeakers from last week.

Chairman of Cooch Behar Municipality Mr Biren Kundu said they received many complaints over illegal use of pumps and unauthorised connections. From now on they would start a house-to-house inspection to find out offenders. After detecting the offenders they would impose fine on them, he added.