By Triyasha Lahiri +1 more
For nearly a month, hundreds of families living in Kolkata’s Jyotinagar Colony, including Jahanara Bibi, have been without a water supply in their neighbourhood. Residents have been forced to turn to the River Ganga for their daily needs, but it has come at a significant risk.
“Little kids are even going to the ghat (riverbank) to wash their faces. Many children have fallen into the Ganga; some have narrowly escaped drowning. Those who do not know how to swim are also forced to bathe in the river,” she lamented.
Jyotinagar Colony is located in Ward No. 6 under the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) in the Cossipore region. Around 5,000 people have lived in the colony for nearly six decades. Most of the residents are Muslims, while a small number of Hindu families also live in the area, locally referred to as Molla Para, or the Muslim Colony.
Many residents work as construction labourers or in bottle-melting units for meagre wages.
“For ages, poor people from both Hindu and Muslim communities have shared many struggles. But this crisis is very new to us,” said Saraswati Biswas, a resident of Jyotinagar Colony who has lived there for 60 years.
The colony has six water taps, all of which have faced a complete disruption in supply since 29 July. Residents allege that, while their taps remain dry, water taps in Hindu-majority colonies along the same road continue to function.
This story was originally published in maktoobmedia.com. Read the full story here.