Civic Chief Writes to Lt. Governor Suggesting Separate Department to Deal with Water Supply Issues

Port Blair, May 29: The Chairperson, Port Blair Municipal Council, Shri. N.K. Udhaya Kumar in a written letter to the Lt. Governor, A&N Islands has highlighted the issue of Water Crisis prevailing in the Urban Areas.

In his letter the Civic chief recalled that immediately on assuming the charges of Lt. Governor, his Excellency has given top priorities in implementation of rain water harvesting system and under the same line the Port Blair Municipal Council amended its Bye- laws. However it has not yielded desired results. Owing to various reasons, one could be non-suitability of ground water owing to subsoil condition of this territory and in general smaller plots and non-availability of sewerage system, which forces individuals to earmark considerable chunk of their property for construction of septic tank.

The Chairperson PBMC has suggested for creation of a separate Department / Board exclusively dealing with Water supply issues as being done in other major cities / Municipalities like Water Supply & Drainage / Sewage Board. He further requested the Administrator to review the projects, which has already been studied and got designed and to engage experts to identify new sites with good catchment area to cater the needs of both the Urban and Rural populace so that Islanders may not face the water scarcity in the days to come.