Women stage protest for drinking water

• Agitators lock MPDO office
• Staff forced to stay outside till lunch time

Kuppam (Chittoor): Hundreds of women of Dalawai Kothappalle village staged a protest at MPDO's office here on Thursday demanding immediate arrangements for the supply of drinking water. The agitating women locked the MPDO office and obstructed the employees from not entering into their office. All the staff stayed outside the office till lunch hour. The women raised slogans against the district administration and criticized it for failing to address their problem. Santhipuram Mandal MPDO Rup Kumar, who is an in-charge officer of the mandal, rushed to the spot and assured the agitating women to take alternate arrangements for the supply of drinking water. The women arrived at the office by 8 am and prevented all the staff from entering into the building and locked all the gates. Upon receiving the information, the in-charge MPDO, Rup Kumar, came to the office and discussed about the drinking water problem with women. The women explained the MPDO that they were forced to go more than two kilometers to fetch a pot of water. They said that due to the recent power cuts, they were unable to get even a pot of water from the agricultural wells and bore wells in the village. 'We have brought the drinking water problem to the notice of Mandal authorities on several occasions, but no action has been taken so far', a woman alleged. 'As we have no alternative option to highlight the problem, we finally took up the protest and locked the MPDO office', she said.

Chittoor MP assures top A A priority to drinking waterA Tirupati: "My top priority is to provide drinking water to all villages in the district during this summer and no village should suffer due to this problem," Chittoor MP Dr N Siva Prasad said. The MP visited Tavanampalle and Irala mandals on Thursday as a part of his 'Mee MP - Mee Venta' (Your MP with you) programme. Speaking to media persons, he said that he had spent major share of MPLADS funds for drinking water needs and many villages had sufficient water supply. He said he was the first person to spend majority of the MP funds for drinking water in Chittoor district. "I have started this innovative programme on Wednesday to know about the problems of the people and to rectify them at the earliest. I want to spend more time with the people of these villages who elected me and it is my prime duty to help them and solve their problems," he explained. When the people of few villages complained him about the shortage of drinking water supply, he directed the Panchayat Raj officials to give utmost importance to the drinking water supply as the summer already set on.