Gaya: An estimated 60 per cent of the nearly 70,000 registered holdings under Gaya Municipal Corporation do not have access to tap water, said Lalji Prasad, a former member of the corporation’s standing committee.
Water comes last on the priority list of the municipal body, Prasad added.
The town population, as on date, is estimated to be nearly 6 lakh.
As per the 2011 census figures, the town’s population was 4.7 lakh.
When The Telegraph asked municipal commissioner Janardan Agrawal on the veracity of Prasad’s claims, he said the figures were not readily available with him and work was in progress to execute chief minister Nitish Kumar’s promise of drinking water to all households.
"A couple of years back, Patna High Court had directed the Gaya Municipal Corporation to prepare a detailed plan for providing tap water to all the residents of the town and submit it to the state government for approval," said RTI activist Brajnandan Pathak, the petitioner of a PIL filed on the issue two years back.
The direction was given by a bench comprising Justice Hemant Gupta and Justice Dinesh Kumar Singh.
Agreeing with Prasad’s estimate, Pathak said most of the colonies that came up during the past five decades, including Shastrinagar, New Karimganj, Magadh Colony and Nagmatia Colony, do not have access to tap water.
Deprived of municipal water supply, the residents have to depend on private sources like tube wells and submersible pumps to lift ground water for use.
On account of irregular rain and excessive withdrawal, the ground water level too has registered a sharp fall.