Unfortunate that people have to knock on court's doors to get water after 75 years of independence: Bombay HC

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday said supply of regular drinking water was a fundamental right and it was unfortunate that people have to knock on the courts doors to get water even after 75 years of independenceThe strong remarks were made by a division bench of Justices S J Kathawalla and Milind Jadhav while hearing a petition filed by residents of Kambe village in Bhiwandi town of neighbouring Thane districtThey were seeking a direction to STEM Water Distribution and Infra company a joint venture of the Thane Zilla Parishad and the Bhiwandi Nizampur Municipal Corporation to supply drinking water on a daily basisThe petitioners contended that they are currently getting water supply only twice a month and that too for approximately two hoursAlso Read Mumbai Water stock in lakes at 92 per cent heavy rain expected in coming daysOn Wednesday STEMs Managing Director Bhausaheb Dangde informed the court that water was being supplied daily but only to one particular point and claimed the distribution of water from that point to the petitioners homes was the responsibility of the villages gram panchayatDangde further said the demand for water in the village has increased over the last few years because of a rise in population thereldquoWe need to upgrade the systemrdquo he saidTo this the court asked what should the petitioners do till the system is upgradedldquoWater has to be supplied daily for at least a few hours This is their fundamental right People cannot suffer like this It is really unfortunate that they petitioners have to knock on the courts doors even after 75 years of independence to get water supplyrdquo the HC saidldquoDont force us to say that the Maharashtra government has failed to provide water to its citizens We refuse to accept that the state government is so helpless We will not shy away from calling the highest functionary of the state governmentrdquo the bench saidThe petitioners had also alleged that the STEM company was supplying water illegally to local politicians and tanker lobbies and claimed there were over 300 illegal water connections and valves fixed on the main pipelineThe court sought to know from Dangde what steps the company has taken to address these issuesldquoFirst remove these illegal connections You STEM have not even bothered to file any police complaints Because of your inaction the petitioners who have to receive water as a right are not getting any waterrdquo Justice Kathawalla said adding that Dangde does not seem to be interested in solving the problemHowever Dangde said when they go to remove the illegal connections a crowd of over 150 people gathers and protests against their actionThe HC posted the matter for further hearing on Thursday and directed Dangde to appear before the court physically and file an affidavitThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever