Three months without water, Tripura locals block national highway

Angry and frustrated, residents of Paijabari area, under Dhalai district of Tripura who have been facing acute water shortage for at least three months now, blocked the National Highway today holding up traffic for several hours.

The protesters claimed that despite repeated assurances from officials, the situation has remained unchanged, leaving them with no alternative but to stage protest to draw attention to their plight and demand an immediate resolution to their suffering.

According to the agitators, over 100 families in the locality have been forced to survive on using untreated water for drinking and cooking purposes.

The reason behind the water crisis is said to a dysfunctional tubewell managed by the Department of Water Supply (DWS), which has remained non-operational for several months now. The situation aggravated with the summer season approaching and the state experiencing a heatwave.

The concern for the residents is not just the non-availability of clean drinking water but also the fact that they might get infected and suffer from diseases like diarrhoea and other waterborne diseases from the contaminated water they are consuming.

As per sources, the water scarcity in rural Tripura in getting worse because of the depleting water table.