Senior citizens travel 6 km for water!

HYDERABAD: Imagine city residents having to travel six kilometres each day to fetch a few buckets of water. Unbelievable as it may sound, this is the kind of hardship that some senior citizens are being subjected to.
"We have individual water connections, but still we have been travelling five to six kilometres each day for the past two years to collect drinking water.At least 22 families in the locality are not being s u p p l i e d drinking water for a sin that they have never committed," complained Mohammed A b d u l Hameed (62) and M Hussaini (68), residents of Hashamabad in Chandrayangutta a s s e m b l y constituency before the Lok Adalat of Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board on Saturday.
"We are senior citizens. Are these the problems we should suffer at the final stage of our life?"a visiblyangry Hussaini asked. His family members go to Bandlaguda to collect water from a supply line. On several occasions the 68-year-old man brings water on his scooter all the way from Bandlaguda.
Abdul Hameed says that since 22 houses have been facing the same problem, the others in the locality are scared to provide water to any of these families. "We want the water board to provide us drinking water at least for 15 minutes,"he added.
The grievance of J Srinivas Reddy and Ashok Patil of Nagulachinta in Shalibanda was that their relatives do
not visit their house because these families have never served them safe drinking water. "We do everything to our guests but offering them safe drinking water because we are not being supplied drinking water for the past four years," Srinivas Reddy said.
Srinivas said, "My father J Venkat Reddy tried hard to get a connection from the water board. He passed away two years ago. The water situation is just the same."
There were many other complaints too at the LokAdalat. The day’s sitting was flooded with variety of complaints and the Adalat went on from 10.30 am to 3 pm. The contention of K L Nageshwara Rao of P & T Colony, Dilsukhnagar, was that the water board should take the responsibility of replacing defunct water meters instead of imposing the burden on consumers.
"I pay Rs15 towards maintenance of water meters but when my water meter is not functioning, the board is asking me to replace it. Is it not ridiculous?" Rao said.