With the water crisis deepening in Shimla, the Himachal Pradesh High Court on Tuesday suspended all construction activity within planning area in the state capital for at least a week.

“Thereafter, depending upon the prevalent situation, a committee so constituted shall take an appropriate decision in this regard,” the Court said.

In a resumed hearing, a division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Ajay Mohan Goel directed the Municipal Corporation to supply water through tankers, even to VIPs, including judges, ministers, MLAs, bureaucrats and Police officers.

“Save, and except extreme emergent situation, no water through water tankers be supplied by MC, Shimla to any individual, more so, in a VIP area, be it the judges, including the acting Chief Justice, ministers, MLAs, bureaucrats, police officers and commercial establishments,” the bench held.

“We clarify that this order would not include the residences and offices of the Governor and the Chief Minister,” the bench added.

The bench directed the Chief Secretary to immediately approach army authorities for diverting the water used for watering the golf course at Annadale, as also the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies (IIAS), which has got huge water storage tanks, to meet emergent situation within the municipal limits of Shimla.

The Court said the overall position is of crises, which requires nothing but effective management and immediate redressal at the ground level so that residents receive bare minimum quantity of potable drinking water.

The Court directed the District Judge, Shimla, who is the Chairperson of the District Legal Services Authority to immediately depute four Para legal volunteers at each of the control rooms set up by the Municipal Corporation, Shimla. These volunteers shall, by rotation, sit in the control rooms and help the officials man the same.

The Court had taken suo moto cognizance of the acute shortage of water on Monday.

Listing the case for next hearing on Wednesday, the bench directed the Commissioner of Municipal Corporation to personally remain present in the court and file the compliance report.

During the hearing, the court was informed that Chief Secretary was monitoring the situation on an hourly basis.

“As on date, approximately 18.5 million litres per day (MLD) of water is being received from all sources,” said the government. Measures for plugging the leakage of approximately 3.5 MLD water already taken, it said. Shimla’s normal demand of water is around 42 million litres per day.

Meanwhile, the tourist rush in Shimla is still not over, the toy trains on Kalka-Shimla heritage rail track, a tourist attraction, are reportedly running without water in toilets, causing inconvenience to the passengers.

A number of public toilets in Shimla too have been closed owing to shortage of water.