Residents of Valmiki Basti in Sector 78 have been facing a water shortage for close to a month. With no supply, people were forced to collect water from a leak in a Gangajal pipeline running beneath a nearby drain.

Around 400 families in Noida’s Valmiki Basti have been left without drinking water after the authorities sealed a leaking pipeline that residents had been relying on for nearly a month. The source was dangerous. But for 400 families, it was all they had.

Residents of Valmiki Basti in Sector 78 have been facing a water shortage for close to a month. With no supply, people were forced to collect water from a leak in a Gangajal pipeline running beneath a nearby drain.

Girls as young as six and seven years old were seen wading into the drain, filling buckets and lifting them above their heads to pass them up. Some tied cloth to the buckets and lowered them in. One slip could send a child into the black water below.

A government tubewell belonging to the Noida Authority stands nearby. Its main pipeline runs under the drain. The pipeline has been leaking, and residents were collecting water from that leak for drinking, cooking and washing.