Water supply snap only after approval from the chief engineer: KMC commissioner
Telegraph | 19 March 2025
Water connection cannot be discontinued without approval from the chief engineer of the water supply department, the commissioner of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation said (KMC) in a written order on Tuesday.
The municipal commissioner’s directive came a day after allegations emerged that the water supply to four taps in a lane in Kasba had been discontinued at the behest of the councillor of Ward 107, Lipika Manna.
It was alleged that those who were facing the brunt of the decision were supporters of the councillor of neighbouring Ward 108, Susanta Ghosh.
Ghosh and Manna are known rivals in the Trinamool Congress. Their supporters have clashed multiple times in the past.
On Monday, the KMC restored the water connection to the four taps.
“In case of disconnection of any water supply connection in the KMC, permission from the director general (DG water supply) will be mandatory,” the municipal commissioner’s directive said.
The directive was issued with the approval of Calcutta mayor Firhad Hakim, it stated.
On Tuesday evening, Ghosh said that the connections to the four taps were discontinued because the families who used to collect water from these taps were his supporters.
“This was a decision taken by the councillor (of Ward 107),” he said.
Manna refuted the allegations against her.
“I had installed 24 new taps after discontinuing the connections to those four taps. If I had the intention of not allowing some families to collect water, I would not have installed so many new taps. This was done to make the water collection process easier for residents in the area,” she said.
A KMC official said that engineers at the borough had power, before Tuesday’s directive by the municipal commissioner, to snap any water supply connection.
The connections are usually snapped if it is an illegal connection taken without a valid permission from the civic body.