North Bengal's Siliguri grapples with acute water crisis

The north Bengal city of Siliguri has been facing an acute water crisis since Wednesday after Siliguri Municipal Corporation (SMC) Mayor Gautam Deb declared that the water supplied from its treatment facility was not safe for consumption.

Siliguri, at the foothills of Darjeeling and Sikkim, is the gateway to India’s Northeastern parts. It gets its water from the Teesta-Mahananda canal. The Teesta barrage at Gajaldoba is undergoing repair works after being damaged by the floods in October last year.

As a result, Mahananda’s water was being distributed across Siliguri by the corporation. However, a recent report revealed that the BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand) in Mahananda’s water was higher than what is suitable for drinking.

This led to Mayor Gautam Dev announcing, “Water will be supplied regularly. But because of high BOD, it is prohibited from drinking till June 2. (SMC) will give one lakh water pouches and drinking water will be supplied water tankers twice a day.”

However, these efforts have failed to satisfy the parched population of Siliguri. Those who can afford are buying packaged drinking water at inflated prices. Others are caught up in commotion and even fighting to secure drinking water from corporation tankers.

26 tankers are being used to supply water. Given that there are 47 wards under the jurisdiction of SMC, the people of two wards are dependent on one tanker. This leads to the assimilation of huge crowds every time a tanker arrives. To mitigate the situation, the civic body is distributing coupons.

Siliguri-based environmental activist Soumitra Ghosh, however, said the water crisis was in the making for a long time. Deforestation in the hills of Darjeeling and Sikkim and urbanisation in downhill polluted the rivers and reduced groundwater capacity in Siliguri and surrounding areas.

“Earlier, a majority of the households had wells. They were not dependent on supplied water from the corporation. But with urbanisation, open areas have been filled with concrete structures. It has reduced the soil’s water retention capacity, increasing people’s reliance on corporation’s water supply,” Ghosh told THE WEEK.

He continued, “The corporation doesn’t have adequate rain-water harvesting capacity. It depends on the river water. But due to deforestation uphills, caused by increased tourism activities, siltation has increased in rivers such as Teesta and Mahananda. The situation is worsened if there’s a disaster like the one happened in October last year.”

The water crisis has led to a huge political uproar in Siliguri with the opposition demanding the resignation of the mayor. The CPI(M) took out a protest march against the civic board. Hundreds of party workers demonstrated in front of the entrance of the municipal corporation office.

Meanwhile, BJP leader and Siliguri MLA Shankar Ghosh informed that he would file a PIL to ensure that people responsible for the crisis get punished. He also alleged that not only the current TMC-ruled civic board but former CPI(M) Mayory Ashok Bhattacharya was also responsible.