Years of media reports and photos drawing the attention of the authorities concerned, years of complaints and protests from locals and years of memorandums and requests, all have fallen on deaf ears. And despite all this, the acute water problems in Kurseong town have been back to haunt residents every year, while it is no different this year too. “I am tired of this thing. It is really getting into my nerves now,” said a resident, who keeps an aluminium bowl beneath the water supply pipeline near his house that leaks and from where drops of water trickle out.

He leaves the bowl there, goes home and gets back after hours to see it filled. As the story is the same for all areas under the Kurseong Municipality, the problems are more severe in the town itself, while all the authorities concerned have been giving people here are assurances, and every year. “Aren’t the assurances enough now? Are not the powers that be supposed to act?” another fuming resident said, when asked how she felt about the water crisis that has been plaguing the town for years now.

Whatever little amount of water the municipality supplies, they are also irregular. “We are still facing a lot of problems fetching drinking water, as the supply at our nearby public tap is disrupted most of the days,” another resident, Bikram Sharma, said, adding, “This has been going for several years now.” According to him, personnel at the civic board concerned give him several excuses and they talk of a myriad of problems about the supply water system in the town.

“While sometimes they say there is insufficient water in the reservoirs, at other times they say the natural sources that feed the reservoirs have dried up,” Mr Sharma said. He explained that he once had a private water connection at home, but water supply there stopped with passage of time, while a time also finally came when even the water pipes disappeared. Reminded of the water problems Kurseong residents have been facing, Kurseong Municipality’s water works councilor Subash Pradhan admitted that the supply has been very poor. “However, efforts are on from our side to provide sufficient drinking water to the public,” he said, giving out yet another assurance for yet another year.

He further said that several plans are afoot to restore proper water supply in the municipality areas. Also, interestingly, the Kurseong Municipality and the Public Health Engineering Department (PHE) have held several rounds of meetings on the water problems, while they claimed they have made several plans in this regard.

However, after years of neverending struggle for the residents, the plans seem to have come to a naught. The vice-chairman of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration board, Anit Thapa, said they have made plans and come up with projects like building reservoirs and lakes in their effort to end the water problems of the town. “We have already submitted the many proposals and projects to the state government, and we are awaiting a nod from there,” Mr Thapa, who is also a leader from Kurseong, said.