Statesman News Service
MALDA, 3 SEPT: Hundreds of people, including erosion victims, from Kaliachak block I areas staged a dharna in front ofthe Public Health Engineering (PHE) department's arsenic division office in English Bazaar today demanding supply of safe drinking water.
Villagers backed by the CPI-M leaders have put forward the demand for arsenic free drinking water from distribution plant located at Dariapur in Kaliachak-III in their villages where much action in this regard has yet not been taken since 2003 insipte of repeated appeals.
The CPI-M MLA from Kaliachak Mr Biswanath Ghosh, the sabhapati of Kaliachak-I panchayat samiti, Mr Lurfar Rahman and the CPI-M member of the Malda Zilla Parishad, Mr Gulam Kibria Biswas led a deputation to the executive engineer of arsenic division Mr Debashis Banerjee voicing concerns over the present state of affairs.
Besides supply of arsenic free drinking water they also demanded setting up a health camp on regular basis for the people in the uncovered zone who are suffering health hazards due to comsumption of arsenic contaminated water.
The executive engineer Mr Debashis Banerjee said that the department had prepared two schemes for the left out villages and these projects are waiting for administrative approval for execution.
Pipeline will be set up in Nawda-Jadupur area to cover some villages like Khikirbona, Debipur, Chhoto Mahadipur, Bahadurpur and others for ensuring a supply of arsenic free water. A total of Rs.1.33 crore has been estimated for this scheme to provide drinking water to 9847 people based on the census report in 2001.
The department has made the project based on designed population 15,164 till 2028 for this area.
According to Mr Banerjee, a total of Rs 41 lakh has been estimated for some villages like Raypur, Trimohini, Rabiramtola and New Chandpur in Uttar Laxmipur where hundreds of erosion victims have been resettled after being rendered homeless due to Ganges erosion. Earlier they lived on the bank of the Ganges in Kaliachak-II.
At present a total of 9133 people live there.
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