Yellow, Black, Blue: How Residents of Mumbai’s Govandi Struggle with Dirty Water and an Apathetic BMC

Mumbai: Lakshmi, a resident of Govandi’s Gautam Nagar Part 2, works as a domestic worker in Chembur. She complains of body ache and fatigue. Lakshmi has not had a proper night’s sleep in over a month. She goes to bed at 11.30 pm and wakes up at 2 or 2.30 am to switch on her motor and start collecting water. The water is either black or yellow or – if you live in Gautam Nagar part 4 – light blue in colour.

Residents believe this is due to effluents from a small jeans-manufacturing unit mixing with the main water line. On most days, the water smells as if it has come straight from a sewer. “Do mahine se gutter ka paani aa raha hai (we’ve been getting sewer water for two months)," is the refrain which can be heard throughout the neighbourhood.

Lakshmi keeps the motor running until about 7 am, when she wakes up her husband and her children. Then, she cleans the house, prepares breakfast and lunch, and leaves for work by 10 am. She manages to catch an hour of sleep before her children return home from school in the evening. 

This routine is common to most homes in the working-class neighbourhood of Gautam Nagar Parts 2 and 4, which receive their water from the ‘Sonapur Road’ main line. The problem started around the last week of February.

Initially, the residents waited, assuming the situation would resolve on its own. When it did not, they lodged complaints with ex-corporators and local political parties. Nothing changed.

Water stored in a container in Gautam Nagar Part 2. Photos: By arrangement.

'No use going to the ward office'

Seema, another resident who works as a helper in a Vashi hospital explains: “There is no use in going [to the ward office] alone. They don’t listen to us. They tell us, 'Your connection is illegal, you don’t maintain your pipes and that is what is causing contamination,' and ultimately threaten to sever our connections. They have even pasted such notices in each slum. We want legal connection too – but where will we get Rs 40,000? This is why all of us need to raise our voices together. But there is no unity among the people here”.

Anandi, a sanitation worker in Gautam Nagar Part 2 feels that if a similar contamination had been detected "in a rich ‘society’ in Colaba, the BMC officers would have pulled out all stops to fix it overnight." 

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation officers state that the water contamination complaint is not restricted to Gautam Nagar but is present in other areas like Maharashtra Nagar and Mandala as well.

The illegal connections persist because under the BMC’s ‘Water for All’ policy, the procedure for applying for a water connection requires the mediation of a middleman – a ‘licensed plumber’ who signs off on the applicant’s form. And the amount charged by the licensed plumber tends to be arbitrary – anywhere between Rs 25,000 to Rs 60,000 per month. White the BMC officially issues a standpost connection to a group of five households (‘members’), licensed plumbers have been known to deliver individual connections in exchange for hefty payments.

The licensed plumbers claim that such large amounts are necessary for they are forced to ‘oil the wheels of the system’ at various stages. Shakir, a member of the movement ‘Pani Haq Samiti’ stated that their applications often take anywhere between a month to six months to get approved and are frequently stalled for the smallest of reasons, whereas grossly incomplete applications by ‘licensed plumbers’ are approved within 15 days. With this being the case, an average of three out of every four households are forced to resort to either an unauthorised connection or, more commonly, purchase water from those with authorised connections, for anywhere between Rs 600 to Rs 1,000 per month.

At the moment however, all connections, whether authorised or unauthorised, receive what appears to be contaminated water. 

Water stored in a drinking water container in Gautam Nagar. Photos: By arrangement.

What residents do now

Over the past two months, the residents have developed a primitive technique for identifying and separating water that they suspect to be contaminated from potentially clean water. For the first half an hour, the water is usually filthy. This is allowed to flow straight back into the drain. Then they judge the water’s colour. Yellow, black and blue water is again thrown out. Water which is somewhat turbid and translucent is stored in the 250-litre blue drums which are covered and kept outside the homes. This is used to wash clothes and take baths with.

If, by chance, the residents receive clean and transparent water (which is identified by how it sparkles in light and its odourlessness), they store it in steel handis and use it for drinking or cooking. As of now, the residents receive clean water on an average of once every three to four days, for about 15 to 30 minutes. Hence, water is used sparingly.

Michael, another resident, complains that his hands start smelling every time he washes them, and that his whole body stinks every time he takes a bath. When the residents run out of clean water, they purchase water cans from neighbouring Shivajinagar. Depending on the amount of clean water they get, their spending capacity, the quality (ordinary BMC water, or RO water or mineral water) and the quantity of water needed (a pack of dozen bottles, a 20-litre can or multiple cans), families spend anywhere between Rs 60 and Rs 600 every day. “This is how we spent our Ramzan,” says Bushra, a 40-year-old homemaker in Gautam Nagar Part-2. .

This is how they spend every day now. Waiting for clean water from 2.30 am, checking every half an hour, sniffing each mug to check its odour, and cursing the BMC while anxious over how they will get through the day.

Those who cannot afford water cans fill water from the nearby police station or from other gullies which are connected to different water lines. Elderly women, who often cannot afford either, make peace with the turbid water. There are many families where every individual has fallen sick at least once every two months.

Turbid water stored in a container in Gautam Nagar Part 2. Photos: By arrangement.

Disease

Akram Khan, a Bachelor of Homoeopathic Medicine and Surgery doctor practicing in the region says, “I have never in my seven years seen so many cases of diarrhoea as I have in these past three months.”

Rakesh Vishwakarma, a doctor who has been practicing in Gautam Nagar for the past 40 years admitted that there has been an increase in the number of vomiting, typhoid, jaundice and diarrhoea cases in the last three months. Similarly, almost every household has individuals suffering from itching, rashes or skin infections. It is not just the houses, even the public toilets receive the same black water. “We have no choice but to wash with the same water,” says Ashok, smiling sadly. Ashok works as a security guard and moved to Gautam Nagar in the early 80s.

Gautam Nagar is a predominantly Dalit and Muslim settlement. It came into existence in the late 1970s, along with other slum settlements in  Mankhurd-Govandi. The suspension of fundamental rights during the Emergency and the opportunity this provided to the real-estate sector to expand while bypassing legal constraints, democratic accountability and public resistance, was too good to be abandoned. Hence, post-Emergency, the state government embarked on a new wave of slum demolitions in central areas like Tardeo, Byculla and Dadar. Under the guise of creating “clean, modern” cities  – a vision which happily aligned with elite and real-estate interests – working people were evicted from their homes and pushed eastwards, towards the swampy marshlands of Govandi, Mankhurd and Chembur.

But even there, they had to fight the BMC who claimed this was government land and that their occupation of it was illegal. In Gautam Nagar, known earlier as Bhakarwadi, the residents had to face multiple demolitions. “They would come every day to demolish our houses. I was very young then. But I remember we fought. Everyone fought together. And a pregnant woman died during a clash with the police. It was only the resulting furore and backlash that ended the demolition drives and we were finally allowed to live,” says Babli Akka, “born and brought up in Gautam Nagar”.

The faint memory of a struggle, where everyone came together and fought shoulder-to-shoulder, is still alive. The residents lived in houses made of bamboo, carpets and gunny bags in the initial years as the slum took shape. Satyabhama recounts clutching her three children tightly on her cot as her house shook violently, her heart pounding as they waited for a storm to subside one monsoon evening. They would only get electricity (for which they had to pay Rs 30 a month) from about 7 pm to 5 am.  And they had to walk to the neighbouring Shivajinagar or Lotus Colony to borrow water from whoever was willing to give them. Or pay someone Rs 2 for a can of water. This was how her family spent close to 15 years, until she got a legal connection. “The days are not that bad,” says Satyabhama with a sardonic smile. “But we haven’t come very far either.” 

'Why do you need the report?'

On April 9, after a door-to-door campaign by activists of Revolutionary Workers’ Party of India (RWPI), the residents came forward to file a written complaint with the water department of the BMC. [Editor's note: This writer is a volunteer with the RWPI].

As expected, the officials blamed illegal connections. However, they agreed to send workers to test the water. The test performed was a rudimentary chlorine test and it merely indicated the presence of chlorine in water. When the water changed colour after the indicator was put in, the workers jubilantly declared the water safe for consumption.

This primitive test was supposedly all that the water department had. RWPI activists had to argue with BMC engineers to convince them that the chlorine test did not detect harmful pathogens (many of which are chlorine-resistant), toxic metals, pesticides or industrial pollutants; and that the officers were clearly ignoring the foul odour, harsh taste and visible turbidity in water. Eventually, on April 17, the officers agreed to send a sample to the BMC’s official water testing laboratory via the Medical Officer of Health. More than a month after the test, the BMC officers have been refusing to release the report. “Why do you need the report? We are accepting that the water quality is bad. We can see the colour. What use do you have for it now?” a sub-engineer asked the residents on their last visit, they say.

On April 23, after more than 30 residents barged into the water department to demand an explanation for its inaction, the water department dug up the concrete road to examine the state of the main water line and several points of contamination were found. In the week since, the pipelines have been ‘flushed’ a couple of times. This is a routine maintenance procedure involving the release of high pressure water into the pipeline to remove sediment and biofilm accumulation from water pipes. However, if the contamination is resulting from one or more external sources, such as a leak in the pipeline resulting in sewage entering the main line, which the residents believe to be the case, flushing alone will not solve the problem.  

“The BMC water department’s budget in the last four years has risen from Rs 2,900 crores to Rs 3,700 crores. If the people are not receiving clean water, then where is this money going? And now they have started work on this issue only because the people are united and are raising their voices in unison for their right to safe water. It is the BMC’s responsibility to ensure every individual has access to a water connection which provides them with safe and good quality water. We will continue to organise and agitate until this right is guaranteed to the people of Gautam Nagar,” says Pooja, an activist with RWPI. 

Late on April 30, RWPI activists waited anxiously outside Satyabhama's house as she turned on her motor to check for water. The engineers had again assured locals that they would receive clean water after 9 pm. But the water was turbid. It would only be usable for cleaning and washing.

In their most recent meeting on May 22, BMC officials refused to provide Gautam Nagar residents any timeline for when they could expect a regular supply of safe drinking water. 

Supreeth is a teacher based in Mankhurd and a volunteer with the RWPI.

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