Water mafia hits Sangli

Even as water is already in short supply in some regions of the state, anti-social elements are leaving no stone unturned to make a quick buck.
Locals on the outskirts of the Sangli district claim that they are being forced to shell out `15 per bucket of water and the same will increase with the onset of the summer season. The same if supplied by a local government body would come up to around `2 per bucket of water.
Officials, however, said that the police is keeping a check on the water mafia and only authorised vendors are being allowed to supply tanker water to areas facing water shortage.
According to Shailesh Patil, a resident of Ranjani, which is about 55 km from Sangli, the water scarcity problem is being exploited by vested interests in his area. A similar situation is prevalent in small hamlets, villages and settlements, which are at a distance of anywhere between 30-100 km from Sangli. “With water being a precious commodity, those having access to water from Sangli city use it to their advantage. While tanker water is provided by the government once a fortnight, there are people who use it as an opportunity to make money,” Mr Patil said.
When this newspaper contacted one such water supplier, who claimed his name was Subhash Dhende, he maintained that he was doing nothing wrong by charging people for water.
“I provide water to settlements that ask me to do so. The charge is to cover the fuel costs I incur, while transporting water to them. I am only doing what the government has failed to do,” he said, justifying his actions.
A salesman from Miraj, Sameer Shahnawaz confirmed that the people living away from Sangli were being exploited and had to pay a premium for water. “When we visit these small villages, we are asked to pay for a glass of water too,” he said.
An official from Sangli’s civic department said that water supply to the rural areas was being taken care of by the respective gram panchayats and zilla parishads. “We have not received any complaint till now,” the official said.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/222611" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-394699bad89873a074f942586f216135" value="form-394699bad89873a074f942586f216135" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80065262" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.