Residents of Ashele in Kalyan East staged a protest outside the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC) headquarters on Tuesday over a water shortage that they said has continued for several months. Carrying empty pots, buckets and vessels, the protesters demanded a regular and adequate water supply to the area.
The demonstration was organised after repeated written and verbal complaints to the municipal water-supply department allegedly failed to resolve the problem. Residents said water availability in Ashele has deteriorated significantly, affecting households in the area for several months.
According to the report, the area previously received water four times a week. Residents now face difficulty obtaining drinking water because of reduced or irregular supply. Local residents had raised the issue with Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) corporator Keerti Dhone, who joined the protest along with local party representatives and other elected members.
The protesters displayed placards stating that access to water is a right and raised slogans demanding immediate action. Dhone and local office-bearer Shubham Dhone reportedly said they would not leave the municipal headquarters until the administration provided an assurance of adequate supply. They later staged a sit-in outside the chamber of KDMC Commissioner Abhinav Goyal to protest what they described as the administration’s lack of response.
The protest comes a week after the BJP held a demonstration at the civic body over water shortages in Gograswadi and Sagarli in east Dombivli. The two protests have also raised questions among residents about the response of elected representatives and the municipal administration to recurring water-supply complaints in parts of the KDMC area.
Several local representatives participated in the sit-in, including corporators Rahul Kot, Nilesh Khambayat, Aparna Bhoir, Tejashree Gaikwad and Vishal Garve, as well as local office-bearers and group leader Umesh Borgaonkar, according to the report.
The KDMC administration agreed to provide Dhone with a written assurance regarding adequate water supply to Ashele. Following that assurance, the corporators and other representatives called off the sit-in. The supplied report does not specify the volume of water to be provided, the exact cause of the shortage, or a detailed implementation schedule.
The next step is the municipal administration’s response to the written assurance and whether regular water supply is restored in Ashele, where residents say the shortage has persisted despite repeated representations.
