JOIN USTaps run dry, toilets stink in seat of power
As the mercury rises, the North Block — one of India’s power centres housing home and finance ministries — has been facing a severe water crisis for nearly a month, causing inconvenience to nearly 5,000 employees working there.
The North Block is receiving 50,000 litres of water daily instead of its requirement of 1.5 lakh litres, resulting in most of the toilets and water coolers going dry.
However, two trucks of a private contractor arrived at North Block on Monday morning to install a borewell to draw water at the behest of the CPWD.
But home ministry officials could not explain whether the digging work is being done to get water for the building or to fill up water bodies and fountains in Raisina Hills, which also houses South Block with the Prime Minister’s Office and Ministries of External Affairs and defence, besides Rashtrapati Bhavan.
It is also not clear whether CPWD has taken permission from the Archaeological Survey of India before assigning the task as the North Block is a heritage structure. The contractor’s men said they have taken permission from Delhi police and Central Industrial Security Force and ASI’s permission was not required.
Home ministry spokesperson Ira Joshi said digging was stopped on Monday evening because of the noise created by it, resulting in inconvenience to employees.
While the stench from the toilets makes it difficult to move in the corridors, at times even drinking water is scarce, heightening the misery of employees who are sweating it out with the temperature hovering at 45 degree Celsius.
Packaged water is the only source of drinking water for many officials.
The spokesperson denied there was a crisis of drinking water but said efforts were on to resolve the scarcity in toilets. “We are working on it,” she said.
A senior home ministry official said they have sent several letters to New Delhi Municipal Council and Central public works department to solve the problem but to no avail.