Residents of a village in Puducherry have taken to the streets to protest the scarcity of drinking water. Residents of Indira Nagar and Metthu Street in Tuthipatta village blocked the roads with empty jugs to continue their protest on Monday. The protest brought traffic to a standstill for an hour. The protest was called off after police intervention and state government officials' assurance of laying new water pipelines.
The protest comes on the heels of a Lok Sabha polls boycott by several villages in the neighbouring Tamil Nadu over water scarcity. There have been calls to boycott polls in Karnataka's Bengaluru over the same issue.
According to a TOI report, the residents of five villages in Namakkal district called for the boycott of the Lok Sabha elections over the scarcity of drinking water scarcity for two years. The residents alleged that the panchayat authority had failed to address the matter all this while, leaving over 500 families in the lurch.
The government of Puducherry on its website acknowledges the scarcity of water in the region. "Annual per capita availability is roughly 200 cubic metres per person which indicates that the Pondicherry region is an area of water scarcity," states a water resources management document on the government's website.
The document further reads: "There are already danger signals which must be heeded if the future growth of the Union Territory is to be safeguarded. Limitations may also have to be placed on water-intensive crops or industries that may take up large quantities of water."
The government, however, has assured of prioritising water supply in the Union Territory. Its Water Supply and Sanitation-Draft Annual Plan 2004-05 states: "The Union Territory of Pondicherry has assigned the highest priority for drinking water followed by irrigation and other uses." It also states that water supply in Urban areas of Puducherry has been taken up in nine zones.