Jaipur water supply hit as tanker owners begin strike

Jaipur: Jaipur’s water supply crisis deepened Tuesday evening after tanker owners outsourced by the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) went on strike, a day before PHED contractors are scheduled to stop work from Wednesday morning.

The disruption hit several last-mile localities that depend heavily on tanker deliveries, including Jhotwara, Kho Nagoriya, and parts of Vidhyadhar Nagar, Jagatpura, Mansarovar, and Pratap Nagar.“These last mile areas of the city mostly depend on tanker water. As the tanker owners decided to go on a strike on Tuesday itself, we could supply water in the evening. The problems are set to multiply once the contractors start their agitation Wednesday morning”, stated a PHED engineer.Department sources said the tanker strike caused serious concern within PHED because the department had planned to use tanker services to manage supply during the contractors’ agitation. Chief engineer (Quality Control) Praveen Ankodia had issued a notification on Tuesday afternoon outlining how tankers should be deployed through the protest period.“To cope with the agitation, we were relying a lot on these tanker services.

Now we are left with no other options. The only solution to this problem is to withdraw the agitation,” stated a senior PHED official.Manoj Sharma - the president of the Jaipur-based PHED outsourced tanker association - stated that they have dues of Rs 5 crores for the last 17 months in Jaipur. “The state govt promised us in the evening to clear the dues by next Monday. We will take a decision Wednesday morning whether to withdraw the strike till Monday or continue with it,” he stated.The strike has also raised fears of a sharp rise in tanker water prices and possible black marketing from Wednesday. A 4,000-litre tanker currently costs around Rs 500 in Jaipur, though rates vary by locality and demand. Tanker operators warned that prolonged disruption could push prices sharply higher.“The biggest challenge would be to meet the growing demand. Even with a high price, we won’t be able to cater to the additional demand. The problem is that ground water level in Jaipur is quite low and it takes a long time to fill up the tankers,” stated Mukesh Saini, the owner of a private tanker.