The Salt Lake authorities have started collecting water tax, but residents are close to boiling point, with water scarcity spiralling in the township. As tempers begin to rise along with the mercury, complaints of insufficient water supply have started pouring into Bidhannagar Municipality.

Besides the scarcity of water, residents allege that high iron content in the water is choking the supply lines from the reservoirs.

“The flow of water has decreased significantly in several blocks over the past few days,” said Ramen Das, secretary of Bidhannagar (Salt Lake) Welfare Association. He said the association was collecting data from several cross-sections of the township regarding the problem and would lodge a complaint with the municipality soon.

“The problem is acute in Sector II and parts of Sector I. The municipality is doing nothing, despite several complaints from the residents,” said Sabyasachi Dutta, Trinamul Congress councillor of ward 10. Crisis point has been reached in AJ block, where residents claim they are being forced to buy water.

According to Tulsi Sinha Roy, Trinamul councillor of ward 12, though water is supplied thrice a day, reservoirs hardly fill up. “The water pressure is extremely low, causing a severe scarcity in and around the block,” she complained. “The water also has a high iron content. As a result, the pipes, which are rarely cleaned, are getting choked,” the councillor added.

Water scarcity around tank no. VIII could have sparked trouble last Thursday, when taps of a canteen ran dry at the 206 bus terminus, where more than 250 people have lunch. “We had to buy water to tide over the crisis. The ferrule was cleaned but to no avail,” said resident Aniruddha Pal.

Other residents also said cleaning of ferrules had become a regular feature in Salt Lake every year at the beginning of summer. But such measures hardly help, they complain.

Municipal officials, however, insisted there was nothing wrong. “Whenever we get specific complaints of supply problems, we attend to them,” claimed D.K. Gupta, chief engineer of Salt Lake municipality.

According to Gupta, the township gets more than 3.5 million gallons a day from Palta and a similar volume from the municipality’s own groundwater resources. “We have 15 reservoirs and most of them have iron treatment plants. We will set up such plants in other tanks, too,” he added.