The Joint Action Committee for
Restoration of Water Supply in Peren town has reacted sharply to the
clarifications offered by the Public Health Engineering division of Peren
concerning water supply to the town. The committee issued a press release on
Wednesday demanding answers why the division neglected the matter for ‘more than
40 years’ and whipped the department for diverting issues and shifting blame on
others.
“The Public of Peren town completely
agrees with the clarification of K Kruse, chief engineer, PHED, on the point
that ‘the existing water supply from Tesangki source has outlived its design
period and is in bad shape.’ If this is the case, the department must also
clarify as to why the department was sleeping over the issue for the last more
than 40 years as the pipelines were installed in the 1970s. What has PHE
department done and executed to improve and augment the existing water supply
from Tesangki source, when they very well knew that it had outlived its design
period?” the committee queried.
Members of Peren town had undertaken a
silent procession recently. They submitted a 15-day ultimatum to the department
of PHE to set up a special investigation team “for restoration of water supply
to Peren town.”
The very night, PHED staffers had rushed
to Tesangki to take up temporary repairing works, the committee stated.
“This implies that the department slept
over the matter for 5 longs months over a job that could have been done in a
day? The department must not hoodwink the public and must come out clean as to
what the department was doing from January 2016 till 19th May,” the committee
stated in ridicule.
The committee stated that it had clearly
stated in its press release, which was published in the local dailies, that
some miscreants had taken advantage of the ‘ongoing land dispute between Peren
village and Tesen village’ to destroy the entire stretch of PHE pipeline at the
Tesangki source.
The committee said that members of the
public of Peren town had on May 17 undertaken verification of Tesangki River
from the source till the delivery point. “…contradictory to the excuses of its
officials that there was no water at the source, the public saw with their own
eyes that there was more than enough water to supply the entire town. PHED
department must admit the fact that, it is purely the negligence of PHED
department and its officials and must stop fooling the public with concocted
stories which otherwise will not go down well.”
“Whether Tesangki River falls under
Peren Village or Tesen Village jurisdiction for that matter, the people of
Peren Town, for no fault of theirs, are facing untold pain and hardship simply
because of the negligence of the Department.”
The committee also stated that providing
water from tube wells to the public was only an ‘added measure’ to strengthen
the existing water supply system and “absolutely not a solution to the chronic
water scarcity faced by the public.”
Further, the “boundary issue” is a long
drawn issue spanning for decades and is best left to the competent authorities
but the PHED must clarify as to whether the department’s staffs were harassed
for undertaking any developmental work in the said area, the committee demanded
to know.
The committee stated: “If PHED feels
that it has a stake in the dispute than they may feel free to become a party to
the case and seek legal recourse. While the Joint Action Committee for
Restoration of Water Supply in Peren Town had walked an extra mile to avoid
compounding on the animosity between the stakeholder villages and walk a very
tight rope over this sensitive issue, this unwarranted reasoning and effort to
divert the blemish of the department and shift the blame on land dispute, only
reflects the callous and ill-motivated intent of the department.”
Dubbing the attitude of the department,
“sick mentality” that “smack of mala-fide intention, with no sincerity to solve
the problem at hand,” it would only add fuel to the fire, the committee stated.
“Has K. Kruse, chief engineer PHED ever
witnessed the realities of PHE pipelines leading to Peren town, leave alone the
source at Tesangki? When his officials at Peren have admitted that they had
never once gone for field duty to Tesangki source, how can the CE PHED sitting
at Kohima give clarification as to what the ground realities are at Peren?”
As for the ultimatum so served to the
department, the committee said that it stands. “We demand the government to
form a special investigation team before the expiry of the 15 days mentioned
thereof,” the committee added.
Al Ngullie, May 25, 2016, Eastern Mirror
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