Dear resident of Darjeeling, I am a small voice of change; I hope I get heard and not get lost in the loud noises around.
So here I go,
No one knows the value of water like the people of Darjeeling. We sometimes wished we had guests, bring water for us rather than sweets. The value of a bucket of water, like every citizen of Darjeeling, I too struggled a lot after returning from Bangalore to get water our daily need. We depended on tankers and rain like everyone in Darjeeling.
After waiting for almost 4 years, we finally get the municipality water supply, and believe me, it wasn’t easy and that’s another story. I spent a good amount of money to get the connection, which I thought was an investment considering how expensive water tankers are. As the water gushed through the pipes my excitement knew no bounds and I think everyone in Darjeeling can relate to that. But to my utmost dismay, when I looked at the color of water it looked like urine with little froth. I thought maybe it must be the rust of the pipes which must have flown along with the water. Waited for a couple of more days but it was the same. Then I checked with few others who have municipality water come to their house, they told me the same thing. “Yes the water is a little hazy, you need to invest on a good water filter”.
Seriously! I mean how can one be okay with hazy water! All this chalta hai attitude of our people has led to the situation that we are in. There is so much water in and around Darjeeling, the tankers carried water, makes all the hotels run in Darjeeling. Where are they getting the water from? There is so much rainfall that we receive, why there is no single water harvesting project initiated by the authorities here in Darjeeling. I am tired of all the big promises before the election, but the sad truth is, no one does anything and I don’t blame the politicians, I blame us. We the people of Darjeeling. We have forgotten to ask for our rights, I repeat basic rights like clean drinking water, good roads, good healthcare system, good education system, employment, and a future.
I have just written future and not a good future because of the way things are going in the hills, I see no future for us here. I didn’t mean to digress from the topic, but how long and how can we go on like this. “Pani awcha bhanda ma nai we can’t be ok, pani safa pani ta awnu paryew”. I have shared the picture of the water that is supplied to us, I have little infants in the house, would you give this water to your kids? I think there needs to be a water filter system before supplying it to the household right?
Is there nobody to check the quality of water that is being supplied? Who knows what lurks in those water which makes it to our kitchen? I hope my message reaches the right authority and hope they look into the matter which I highly doubt, I hope the MLA aspirants bring this topic and really work towards providing clean drinking water and not trash in the bin after the win.
Thank you!
Writes: R Chettri
Creation of a big water collection and treatment plant in Darjeeling would be no problem. The issue is Darjeeling has no infrastructure to get water to people in an efficient, clean and safe manner. Decades of neglect of proper infrastructure and rampant construction with little planning of necessities like water has led to this. It would require a complete overhaul and a monumental task to fix this so every household has access to proper and clean water. It is easier for each household to look into installing water extraction systems in their own homes. There are modern and advanced technology that can harvest water from air. Darjeeling itself receives much rainfall so it would be much easier. Question is getting such technology manufactured so its affordable and accessible for everyhousehold.
It is soo damn true.. it is because of our ignorance we have such people working in municipality. People of hills are soo innocent that they get carried away by any statement made by the politicians.. we people don’t even realise the ministers and politician who can’t even manage a municipality properly talk about running a separate state Gorkhaland….