DO IT YOURSELF – Residents resort to home made measures

1 September, 2008 - While there may be plenty of water in Trashigang, clean drinking water, however, is a different story.

Residents say that, in the absence of alternatives, they have been forced to drink water with “soil particles and dust” for a long time.

“Water in summer has been like this for years now and we’ve become used to it now,” said a shopkeeper.

But now a few residents have devised ways, never mind how makeshift, to deal with the problem.

They tie the taps with piece of cloth and some even stitch a pouch for the taps to filter water. The problem with cloth is that, when thick with mud, the water comes out through the handle of the tap. Besides it’s not healthy. “We have to wash and tie them all over again,” said a resident.

Tsendra, a corporate employee, collects water in buckets and allows the dust particles to settle down.

Others have bought filters.

Trashigang middle secondary school, which has 150 boarders, besides day scholars, serves boiled water to students. The principal, Nima Damdul, said, “Every summer the water’s very dirty and the workload on the kitchen has been increasing, so we ordered for an electric water filter.”

Parents complain that their children get rashes and ringworms on their bodies because of the water. Authorities say that there has not been any major outbreak of disease.

“Even when it doesn’t rain, we get murky water,” said Dema, a housewife. “The municipal has to do something, since they’re charging us for water.”

The town’s municipal authority say they lack adequate human resources and funds to address the problem. Despite the presence of sedimentation tanks and a routine cleaning once every 15 days, the water is brownish and dirty, officials said. The old tanks and rusted pipelines, that were laid down over a decade ago, are not making things any easier.

The muddy water also chokes the pipes, cutting off the water supply. The supervisor of the water supply in the municipal office, Tenzin, said that they carry out backwash, a process used to remove mud and other sediments by channeling water from a greater height, from the bottom of the sedimentation tanks, every two or three days.

The chlorinating facility is out of use because the water cannot climb up to it. “The force of the water is not enough to reach the chlorinating tank,” said Tenzin.