GUJRAT, April 1: Civic agencies in Mandi Bahauddin have failed to provide basic amenities to more than 700 residents of Faisal Colony, commonly known as Bihari Colony, whose 35 per cent population is suffering from hepatitis.

Biharis who returned from Bangladesh after dismemberment of Pakistan were settled in the colony in 1974. They had been denied basic amenities since then. Consequently they formed a welfare society in 1990 for the betterment of their colony.

A number of residents told this scribe during a visit the other day that they had been living a miserable life without any facilities. They said they have repeatedly been requesting the tehsil municipal administration to make arrangements to clean the main drain and remove heaps of garbage from streets of the colony but nothing has yet done.

They claimed that instead of cleaning their colony, sanitary workers of the TMA had been dumping garbage of the whole city on a piece of land owned by Pakistan Railways close to the colony. It remained submerged under water as its level was lower than the surrounding areas, they added.

Dirty water mixed with garbage gave foul smell which made it difficult to breath, they maintained. They said as the TMA had not provided them water supply connections, most of the residents have installed hand pumps inside their houses. But, the pumps were sucking contaminated water.

They have installed water filters but to no avail. Due to the negligence of the TMA, almost 35 per cent of the population has been suffering from hepatitis, they claimed.

Moreover, they have repeatedly been falling prey to malaria due to mosquitoes breeding in the stagnant dirty water. They claimed that a matric student, Shahbaz, had died of hepatitis some months ago. They feared that if the authorities concerned did not take appropriate measures, incidence of hepatitis and other diseases could increase.

They said despite repeated requests, the TMA did not install streetlights in the colony. However, the TMA installed two bulbs when they collected alms for the provision of the electricity wire for the purpose.

They said there was insufficient number of electricity poles and transformers as a result of which voltage remained low. Federal minister Mahmood Ali visited the colony in 1978 and approved installation of nine electricity poles and a transformer but Wapda installed only four poles instead of nine and no transformer, they added.

They said the federal government had issued a grant of Rs73,000 for the provision of a separate transformer and poles to the colony but the sum has yet to be utilized.

Meanwhile, a TMA source told this scribe that the district Nazim had written a letter to the Gepco executive engineer on April 29, 2003, for the installation of a separate transformer for the colony which has not yet been installed.