Water supplied once a week to colony with 2,000 families With most parts of the town reeling under acute shortage of drinking water, more and more residents are taking to the streets demanding that the civic administration sort out the problem on a war footing. On Tuesday, more than 100 residents from Sathya Nagar resorted to a dharna in front of the zonal office of the civic body in Kasipalayam. They were protesting against the erratic supply of drinking water to their area, which forced them to endure hardship in getting adequate supply of water for their daily consumption. They claimed that the civic officials were providing water once in seven days to their colony, which has more than 2,000 families. Duration The total duration of supply was also reduced drastically, according to those who had gathered at the venue to stage a protest regarding their grievance. On several occasions, piped water supply was given just for an hour, according to the protestors. At a time when the mercury was touching 37 degrees Celsius, the supply gap of 7 to 10 days was intolerable, residents said. Residents claimed that the inadequate supply from the civic body had forced them to depend on the private suppliers to meet their daily water requirements for drinking. “We were spending a significant of our income to buy water. “The private players are charging up to Rs. 1,500 per fill,” they pointed out. Consequently, they urged the civic body to increase the supply of water through its tankers, so that they would not have to continue dependence on private suppliers for their needs. Officials however say the civic body has only six vehicles and each tanker is making five trips a day. It has hired five private tankers that are supplying water to a few areas now. “We will take steps to hire more tankers and improve the supply,” they assure. The civic body could not meet the growing water requirements this summer with the 56 million litres of water that it receives from the existing water supply schemes. The existing schemes are grossly inadequate as the population in the town has almost tripled and more areas had been included in the Corporation limits, officials point out. Four municipalities, two town panchayats and five village panchayats were merged with the Corporation recently. The long hours of power outage and distribution pipeline leaks that have not been repaired were also reasons for the shortage in the supply. On several occasions, piped water supply is given for just an hour, say protestors Inadequate supply from civic body has forced people to depend on private suppliers Civic officials say steps will be taken to hire more tankers and improve supply