Bedong villagers fume over 2 years of little or no water supply

 

Malaysian Tamilar Kural president P David Marshel speaking to residents of Kampung Sungkap Para in Bedong, Kedah.

SUNGAI PETANI: For the past two years, some 200-odd villagers in a remote part of Bedong, Kedah, near here have been suffering in silence as water has been hard to come by.

The villagers, who are mainly oil palm estate workers, in Kampung Sungkap Para have been suffering from intermittent water supply since March 2020, a few days after the first movement control order (MCO) was implemented.

At one point in June that year, they did not have a drop of water from their pipes for 15 days. When a Kedah water company sent tankers, the villagers fought with the drivers over claims that water tankers were frequently sent to provide water to an adjacent kampung.

These days, the villagers say there is some improvement, but the anguish remains because water supply flows through the taps at 2am, and that too, for only an hour.

They use pails and containers to collect water from their taps, only to be shocked to be billed RM90 when it is usually a quarter of that amount.

The women there, who are mostly housewives, are now forced to sleep during the day, because doing the dishes is postponed to the wee hours of the morning.

“Half of the villagers here are senior citizens. They are tired of fetching water in pails from tankers to their homes.

“We have protested outside Syarikat Air Darul Aman (Sada) a few times, sent so many letters, spoken to YBs, Datuks, so many officers. But, until today, it is so difficult to get water,” resident Jenaki Sadayan, 33, told FMT.

Jenaki, who has been writing repeatedly to Sada for the past three years, said there has not been much improvement.

She said a Sada officer said old pipes and low water pressure were to blame over the lack of water supply there, and it would take about three months to carry out repairs.

“People have to buy outside food, they can’t cook at home. We have also spent a lot of money buying bottled water by the boxes.

“We are also too embarrassed to keep showering at our workplace and at our relatives’ homes.

“As a paying customer, we expect non-stop water to flow through our taps,” she said.

Malaysian Tamilar Kural president P David Marshel, who visited the villagers earlier today, urged Kedah menteri besar Sanusi Md Nor to step in to resolve the villagers’ issue.

He said if the water supply was not restored, he would be joining the villagers in their protest at Sada’s headquarters in Alor Setar.

FMT has contacted Sada and the relevant state government officials for comment. - FMT