‘Will force VMC officials to drink contaminated water’

Vadodara: Frustrated over delays and denials regarding problems of water supply in his ward, a corporator of the ruling BJP in the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) the unexpected — he threatened to make officials drink contaminated water!
Corporator Ashish Joshi from Waghodiya Road, a close aide of heavyweight BJP MLA Shailesh Mehta, slammed officials in the general board meeting on Monday evening for underplaying the problems.He said that some localities in his area had been receiving water with low pressure. A residential society there was also receiving contaminated water for quite some time now even as engineers were struggling to identify the fault.
“Officials try to underplay and negate even complaints made by us. I had raised the issue of low pressure in a society. They came in the morning and saw the water supply in an underground tank. They made a video and reported that water was coming about 1.5 feet above ground and there was no problem,” Joshi said.
Joshi said that the reality was that the video was of an underground tank of a house where water was coming from the connection about one to 1.5 feet above the bottom of the tank. “The tank will not get filled beyond a couple of feet. Will this water be sufficient for use throughout the day,” said Joshi. He said that the officials claimed to provide 180 litres of water per person in the city which was far from the reality.
Frustrated with the delay in taking care of the problem of supply of contaminated water in Vaikunth township, Joshi threatened to make officials drink the same water. “I have been asking them to solve the issue since around 25 days now. Women are very upset over the issue,” said Joshi.
Joshi pointed out that water is provided to the residents with tankers. “They are asked to come to the tanker and fill two buckets each. Since it a locality of well-to-do people, they are reluctant to do so and prefer buying water jugs,” he said. He slammed the officials for being able to address the issue in only one street of the area despite complaints since nearly a month.