kolkata its a familiar sight in behalas parnasree these days queues of people waiting patiently in front of tube wells waiting for their turn to fill buckets and other utensils and lug them back home for over two weeks all civic taps in the area have run dry and people have either had to fetch water from tube wells or give in to bharis or water carriers who are out to make a killing while the water situation has been terrible recently parnasree residents say that the township of 60000 has been doing with scant scant water supply for the past six months citing ongoing work on the kolkata environment improvement project keip as an excuse kolkata municipal corporation has reduced its water supply to the area to once a day earlier water came twice every day that supply too was a mere trickle in the morningsnow with kmc stopping the garden reach supply altogether the taps have run dry so bucketcarrying women head for tube wells in parnasree localities like rabindranagar iiv ramkrishna pally duttabagan kajipara adarshanagar joyrampur and bg press colonythe crisis has not spared anyone in parnasree be they slumdwellers or the affluent rinku chakraborty who lives in a threestorey house in ramkrishna pally said there is no way out but to wait in queue with buckets for drinking water for bathing and washing utensils and clothes we draw water from a well in front of our house which we cleaned when the crisis began but i also fear that continuous use of this water could lead to skin diseasesgeeta singh and her family have come from benaras for their daughters wedding on february 14 geeta has chosen to buy tins of water for rs 6 each i spend rs 2430 a day buying water which the carriers fetch from tube wells we use the water not just for drinking but even to wash clothes and utensils if the crisis lasts a few more days i will have to buy many more tins of water when relatives start arriving as the wedding nears she saidshakhina bibi of a slum in kajipara said me and my children have skipped a bath for quite a few days councillors of the four wards affected by the crisis blamed the kmc anjan das councillor of kmcs ward 129 said the problem did not crop up overnight we had warned the kmc several times in the past that a water crisis was looming in the area and could break out any day but the water supply department and its mayorincouncil member ignored them kmcs mmic water supply mrinal kanti mondal said the roots of the crisis are in the ongoing keip work we are doing everything possible to restore supply but normality will return only when the work is complete