00:00If the people are 30, is your tanks empty?
00:05Is your tanks and your neighbours' tanks empty?
00:08Are you struggling for water? Because we are.
00:10It's not unusual to hear that Barrackpore residents have gone months without water,
00:15but that doesn't mean they've grown accustomed to the point of accepting it.
00:20In Julian Branch Street's Barrackpore, they've gone without water since January,
00:24and it's both frustrating and an inconvenience to these bill-paying customers.
00:30Terrible. No water. For the past two months, the last I received water was the 3rd of January.
00:36I've been calling water every single week, sometimes twice a week,
00:42and all you're getting to hear from them is low pressure. Pressure will be built in.
00:46Another resident who's both a farmer and contractor says he has to limit the amount of water he gives his
00:54animals,
00:54and his business has taken a hit as he's unable to do certain jobs without a reliable water supply.
01:01It's unfortunate. I pay commercial rate, right? I'm not a good supplier of water.
01:06Some of these residents have been known to receive Wasa's stroke bone supply intermittently,
01:12but Mr Surjan says it's not enough for his family of five, and he's forced to buy a supply weekly.
01:19Thanks to the councillor, she helps speed up this process of getting the water once per week,
01:25but it is not enough, especially for a family of mine of five, to do all household chores, dishes, clothes,
01:34and everything else. It's not enough. Even if we try to hold back, it's not enough.
01:39$3.50 for a load of water. $3.50 by four is almost $1,200, $1,500. There's a car
01:46payment right there.
01:47There's a rental payment. There's a rental room for that. I have my house, and I still have to pay.
01:52We pay for it. We still pay our bills as normal.
01:55Over in Oropooch, South Trace, residents say they regularly go two to three weeks without a supply.
02:03We suffer from water here for years. When you call Wasa, Wasa's giving you a schedule.
02:08The schedule they're giving you, it's barely reaching the people in the front.
02:12The people down inside suffering the worst, right?
02:15When you book for truck-borne water, they're giving you a reference number,
02:20and then nothing happens. They're telling you three to five days.
02:23I have three requests from December 28th till last week. I never received one.
02:29To be a government minister, it's easy. It's sounding like people don't have water,
02:33but no water means no education for which I run, no food, no sanity at our homes.
02:39And we need to live as humans now. We need to be treated with some sort of humanity.
02:44It makes no sense we pay our Wasa bill and not getting a cycle of water at least for the
02:50month.
02:50When contacted, Minister of Public Utilities Barry Padarat said the issue appears to be one of low water pressure.
02:58And while changing out aged infrastructure is not an overnight fix,
03:03he revealed that there are plans to establish two tank farms in the Barakpur area within the next two months
03:09and allocate more trucks to the area as a short-term solution.
03:14Meanwhile, in response, the Water and Sewage Authority this afternoon announced an interim water schedule
03:21for these and other areas in Barakpur, which it says are experiencing low-pressure challenges.
03:28Wasa says the interim schedule is aimed at managing the available supply effectively
03:33to ensure equitable distribution and urged residents to use the water judiciously during these periods.
03:41Cindy Raghubatika Singh, TV6 News.
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