Drinking water issue plagues Kothagudem; Will officials be kind this time?

Kothagudem: The people of Kothagudem have been facing the drinking water and traffic issues for the last many years. They said water is provided only in some wards while people in half of the wards were left to suffer due to shortage of drinking water. Further, there is no traffic signalling system in place in the town. Despite a large number of employees of Singareni Collieries Company Limited reside in the coal town, neither the management of the SCCL nor the municipality officials have taken any concrete measures to install traffic signalling system. Further, their efforts to curb pollution due to coal mining are also minimal. With municipal elections just a fortnight away, the residents of the town are demanding the political parties and the municipal officials to provide the basic facilities in the town such as drinking water, roads in some of the wards besides traffic signalling systems to curb accidents.

K Venkateswarlu, a senior citizen, speaking to The Hans India, said that there were many long pending issues in Kothagudem municipality, the primary being lack of road connectivity. "The water remains stagnated on roads in the main streets. The district headquarter lacks public toilets. Eveb the drainage system in the town is in shambles. Further, the sanitation staff do not take up the cleaning works regularly leaving the garbage in bins for many days. The government has not inaugurated even a single double bedroom house in the municipality," he said, appealing to the municipal officials and public representatives to solve the issues and provide basic facilities to the residents of the municipality.