chennai residents of chinnathambi street in george town get metrowaters drinking water supply every alternate day but these 65 buildings on the street cannot use the water as it has been contaminated by sewage leaking into these pipelines they have been getting contaminated drinking water supply for the past six months said s riyaz who lives in the area every time we complain metrowater officials visit the street but the problem persists as they are unable to plug the sewage water leaking into the drinking water pipelines now the engineers are also not cooperating and just want to close the valves but if they close the valve we will not receive any water said riyaza similar problem was faced by residents of kandhappachetty street a few months ago their issue was resolved after months of struggle l joseph a resident said they have to spend about 5000 10000 every month on water because of this issue we have a public tap outside where we can pump and check if the water supply is clean or contaminated on rare occasions the water is clean an official instead of solving the issue and plugging the leakage advised us to wake up early and collect water if we wanted to avoid contaminated supply he saidmubarak ali ahamed said they were completely dependent on the palavakkam water that was sold in cans for 20 each and on the borewell because of this we pay our taxes on time and other water charges as well yet we do not get clean water supply we purchase cans for drinking now for bathing and washing we have to pay extra and buy from private suppliers several people in the area have fallen sick because of the contaminated water he said toi tried to contact the area engineer and the executive engineer in charge for the street but they did not respond to the calls other senior metrowater officials were also unavailable for comment