Summers bring Shimla’s water woes to a boil

Shimla, May 27: As north India’s summer heat makes hordes of tourists flock to Himachal Pradesh capital Shimla, the season also brings bucketloads of trouble for its residents — a majority of localities are facing a water supply crisis, getting potable water only once a week. While the residents are grappling with water woes — not exactly for the first time — civic body Mayor Kusum Sadret of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is helming the Municipal Corporation for the first time in three decades since June 2017, is away to China on an official tour. City residents say the problem has aggravated ever since the mercury shot up and a notable spike was witnessed in tourist footfalls to Shimla, which otherwise is getting adequate funds under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT). Planned by the British for a maximum 16,000 populace, the ‘Queen of Hills’ now houses nearly 200,000, requiring 42 million litres per day (MLD) of water. Officials say the city is getting 23 MLD on an average every day. “But where is the water flowing?” asks a hassled resident Deepak Thakur. “We are getting supply only once a week these days and that too just for a few hours, mostly late in the night when we are sleeping,” he griped. (IANS)

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