Mumbai water crisis: ‘We cannot survive if we sit idle like this’

Tankers of Yogesh water supply company parked along the road at the Ville Parle to Andheri Road. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

Chhotelal Jaiswal, 70, has been sitting idle for the past two days. He has been a tanker driver for nearly 40 years. He has left his family back home at the village and has been with the tanker industry for more than half his life. "My daily earnings are my bread and butter, and we cannot survive if we sit idle like this. It has been two days now, and I have been surviving because of the community, but if it stretches too long, there will be problems."

Driver Chhotelal Jaiswal, with his water tanker, parked outside the water filling station in Prabhadevi

Another tanker driver, Pradeep Kumar Tiwari, said the vehicles have been in a standstill for the past two days. "The new harassment now is that the traffic police have come and clamped the wheels of our vehicles and issued challans. This is a gross injustice. The tankers have no other utility other than supplying water, and since the protests, the tankers have been standing in one place with losses incurring every day, and now we are faced with fines," he said.

Santosh Singh, who supplies water in the central Mumbai region of Dadar and Prabhadevi, said the authorities are just harassing them. "This is not a strike, but non-cooperation against the BMC's bullying tactics. The wells have been there since old times in Mumbai, and notices have been issued to well owners threatening them not to provide water to us," he told mid-day.

Santosh Singh (right), coordinator of Dadar and Prabhadevi tankers with other tanker owners hold the BMC notice issued to well owners

"Water is supplied not just to housing societies, but about 195 tankers go to CSMT and Churchgate and even to railway officials' bungalows in Malabar Hill, offices, road concreting works, major construction sites and all such installations," Singh said.

Flashing the notices slapped, another tanker operator, Naresh Dhuru, said, BMC notices have been issued to well owners asking them to remove pipes, pumps and installations. "The BMC has just two back up water tankers in wards, and they make just two rounds in the day. We have been the crucial lifeline of Mumbai. There was a similar thing in 2023. That time, assurances were given, a committee was formed, but it is all temporary and nothing happens after that."