Col Shiv Choudhary
shivchoudhary2@gmail.com
Access to safe, regular drinking water is not a privilege or a favour; it is a fundamental civic responsibility of the State. Yet, for the residents of Sainik Colony, Jammu, this most basic entitlement has remained elusive for an astonishing 55 years. What began in the early 1970s as one of Jammu’s most planned residential colonies has, over time, become a glaring example of administrative neglect, denial, and step-motherly treatment by successive governments, public health authorities, and civic agencies.
Sainik Colony today houses nearly 20,000 residents across approximately 6,500 residential and commercial properties. Its population includes serving and retired defence personnel, war veterans, gallantry award winners, war-wounded soldiers, widows of martyrs, and their families, alongside civilians. This is a community that has spent its working lives serving the nation with discipline, sacrifice, and faith in institutions. Ironically, that very discipline and restraint appear to have been misconstrued as tolerance for injustice.
“A dry tap in a populated city is not an act of nature; it is a signed document of administrative failure.” For more than five decades, residents have chosen constitutional methods, representations, meetings, memoranda, and patience over any agitation, protests, or litigation. This faith in governance, however, has been repeatedly tested and consistently betrayed. It seems there lies a justifiable ground for an underlying storm of impatience, born not out of entitlement but prolonged denial of water.
Even today, water supply in Sainik Colony is erratic, unreliable, and grossly inadequate. Water is supplied once in three or four days, often for just 30 to 45 minutes. Houses located at the tail ends of lanes receive negligible water, if any. On many occasions, the colony goes an entire week without a single drop. This is not an sporadic failure; it is a chronic condition institutionalised over 55 years, making it one of the longest unresolved civic failures in the region. This is ironically during an era of much said concern for public.
The injustice becomes even more glaring when compared with neighbouring colonies, many of which were developed decades later yet enjoy assured daily water supply. Sainik Colony, despite being larger, older, and systematically planned, remains deprived. This disparity raises disturbing questions about equity, administrative intent, prioritisation, and accountability. Is the colony being punished for its silence? Or has it simply been forgotten?
The prolonged shortage has inflicted immense hardship, particularly on senior citizens, families with young children, and elderly parents living alone. Residents are compelled to rely on private water tankers, each costing around ?700. For pensioners, widows, and families with limited incomes, this recurring expense is crushing. The irony is painful: residents pay water charges regularly, are willing to pay higher charges if required, yet are denied a minimum assured daily supply of potable water even as the nation enters its 79th year of Independence.
This sustained deprivation has psychological and social consequences as well daily anxiety, planning life around water availability, and the indignity of living in a perpetual state of scarcity despite being law-abiding taxpayers.
The crisis cannot be conveniently blamed on the absence of water sources. Six tubewells exist within Sainik Colony. One remains defunct due to neglect rather than any major technical failure. Two others are incomplete, with boring and civil work initiated only recently after years of persistent follow up. Even now, uncertainty prevails over when much needed and promised pipelines assured as early as in Mar 2025 will be tendered and laid.
More disturbing is the fact that water from Sainik Colony’s existing tubewells is diverted to neighbouring colonies, further reducing availability for original residents. Despite this, the Jal Shakti Department continues to maintain that it is “meeting all needs”, a claim starkly and factually contradicted by all the residents.
Over the years, Sainik Colony’s already limited water quota has been systematically diluted. Pipelines have been extended to numerous nearby colonies, hutments, and settlements without any corresponding augmentation of supply or infrastructure, while the colony’s original allocation has remained frozen. Compounding the problem, dozens of commercial car-wash units draw substantial quantities of water from the same pipelines. The result is predictable: declining per-household availability and rising distress.
A clear and immediate opportunity lies in operationalising three existing tubewells that remain non-functional due to the absence of basic infrastructure ie pump rooms, motors, and pipeline connectivity to existing tanks. These are minor, non-capital-intensive works, well within administrative capability. Yet, for years, authorities have preferred crisis management and quick fix temporary solution over permanent solutions, firefighting instead of fire prevention.
Adding to losses are unauthorised connections, pipeline damage during construction, illegal borewells despite groundwater regulations, and unchecked misuse and theft. Adding to it, is the open misuse of water by labour class living in huts within the colony while the colony management committee has no objection to JMC dismantling such huts. These point to weak enforcement and casual oversight, despite repeated alerts by residents.
Water supply infrastructure is further weakened by erratic electricity supply to pumping stations and storage tanks, many located outside the colony. Power disruptions directly impact lifting water from the Jammu Tawi to tanks at Batindi and elsewhere. The absence of power backup, spare motors, and contingency planning reflects poor inter-departmental coordination and an alarming lack of ownership. However, this cannot be justified against scarcity of basic water needs. Administration cannot live on such premises, rather it needs to explore solutions.
Responsibility is diffused among multiple agencies; the PHE/Jal Shakti Department, Mechanical Division, Power Development Department, and Jammu Municipal Corporation. This administrative fragmentation has become a convenient alibi for failure, forcing residents into an endless loop of representations with no single authority accountable for outcomes.
The Sainik Colony Management Committee has submitted over fifteen formal representations in recent years and held numerous meetings with authorities and political leadership. Assurances have been given repeatedly; results have not followed. No credible, time-bound, long-term plan ensuring daily water supply has emerged.
After 55 years, this is no longer merely a technical issue. It is a failure of governance, coordination, prioritisation, and empathy. Restoring the colony’s rightful water quota, operationalising existing tubewells, ensuring uninterrupted power supply, regulating pipeline extensions, auditing distribution networks, and enforcing accountability to meet genuine water needs are not extraordinary demands. These are routine administrative and mandated duties. A sustainable, one or two years water management plan, not ad-hoc crisis handling, is urgently required. These measures demand only administrative resolve and moral clarity, not innovation.
Access to drinking water is a civic entitlement, not a concession. Correcting this long-standing injustice would not only restore water to Sainik Colony but also restore faith in governance. For a colony that symbolises decades of national service in Tri-service defence forces, ensuring a daily supply of potable water is both a practical necessity and a moral obligation.
The growing anger among residents is a direct consequence of sustained neglect. Their continued restraint and choice not to pursue legal remedies must not be taken for granted. Silence should not be mistaken for consent.
(The writer is a motivational speaker and a change maker).
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