After Noida seals leaking pipe, 400 Valmiki Basti families still await water supply

Six-year-old Raja in Valmiki Basti, Sector 78, framed the daily choice plainly: “Should I go to school or fetch drinking water?”

Around 400 families in the Noida settlement had been collecting water from a leak in a Gangajal pipeline beneath a nearby drain for drinking, cooking, washing clothes and utensils. Children, including girls aged six and seven, were seen going into the drain with buckets and passing filled containers up from below.

Residents have faced a water shortage for close to a month, while one resident said her family had been using water from the leaking pipe for three months and had previously collected it from another pipe nearby.

A Noida Authority team sealed the leaking pipeline after concerns that residents could fall into the drain while collecting water. The authority also used bulldozers to close other water sources along the drain bank. A government tubewell stands nearby, with its main pipeline running under the drain.

The leak has been closed, but the families are still waiting for a safe, regular water connection or another supply arrangement.