Dhenkanal: Irate women of ward 14 and 18 of the civic body limits here barged into the office of the public health engineering department and forced two engineers to take round of their wards to take stock of the drinking water problems Monday.
The agitators gheraoed the office and forced the executive engineer and a junior engineer to walk on the road under the blazing sun.
The women took the extreme step after their repeated pleas to solve their drinking water problem before the administration and PHED authorities failed to yield any result. The wards have a population of over 8,000.
The women led by councilor of ward-14 Rudranta Kumar Dalei and councilor of ward-18 Kuntala Kumari Dalei took out a rally before gheraoing the office. Their anger knew no bounds when they found the assistant executive engineer not regularly coming to office.
They gheraoed JE (section-2) Ashok Kumar Mishra and made him stand under the sun for over two hours before asking him to call his higher-ups and apprise them of their drinking water problems.
Tension flared up after Mishra failed to contact his higher-ups over phone despite repeated attempts. The irate women pinned him down and made him sit on the ground when executive engineer of Angul division and in-charge of Dhenkanal division Mrutyunajaya Pani came on a visit to the office and was caught in the melee. Pani reportedly tried to rebuff the women.
The women caught Pani and Mishra and made them walk down to the wards where they asked the executive engineer to push the handle of a defunct tube-well.
After visiting the wards Pani assured the women of supplying water through a tanker and solving their problem within a week.
Besides, he assured them of making efforts for a permanent solution to their problem by ensuring drinking water supply from river Mahanadi as it is not possible to supply more water from Brahmani. The women warned of intensifying their agitation if their demand was not met. PN