Apart from the shortage of water, the water is unusable as it is dirty and gives a bad odour.

"The water is too dirty to touch and it smells so bad that we cannot use it to clean ourselves even before prayers," said Sirajul Islam, Imam of the Quiety Mosque at Uttar Badda, describing how bad the quality of water is.

He said: "Ramadan will commence within a fortnight from now and people of this area have no supply of fresh water."

Because of the pressure put on the Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (WASA) by local leaders, it has from September 14, started supplying one truck of water daily to the mosque. But that it not sufficient, residents alleged.

People told Star City that the problem emerged for the first time when WASA dug sewerage lines in the area two years ago. Initially the problem was negligible, but now the stage is quite unbearable.

Locals said that the water line is below the sewerage line and constant digging by the authorities has caused a number of leakages in supply lines, which are merging dirty water with clean water.

Papia Sarwar, a housewife said that like all other neighbours she also has been bringing in drinking water from a long distance for more than three months.

"It's a tough task. Families resort to this practice regularly as there is no other way left for them," she said, adding that it was very embarrassing to seek water daily from relatives living in Gulshan.

"The water we receive along the lines is of no use, but we still have to pay WASA for it," said Anwar Hossain, a house owner.

"We tried to demonstrate against Wasa for their negligence but the commissioner did not let us do so," said another resident.

He said that Ward Commissioner stopped the locals from staging any demonstration and no one in the area dared to go against the commissioner.

Peyara Mostafa, female ward commissioner for the ward's reserve seat said that she and the ward commissioner are jointly trying to solve the water problem as she too suffers because of the water crisis.

She said that the Wasa authority came and checked the problems but failed to give any solution.

She also said that after lobbying with the authority, they were informed that Wasa could not change the faulty pipes due to shortage of funds.

M A Qaium, Ward Commissioner, denied the accusations against him for foiling the demonstration programmes and claimed that he himself called the people together to press the authority to adhere to their demands.

He also said that they had fixed a date to hold a demonstration rally on Pragati Sarani but because the Awami League, had a demonstration programme they had to postpone theirs.

Wasa authorities told Star City that the unscrupulous house owners had created the problem as these house owners changed their connection-lines to get more water and left leakages in the water pipes.

When asked why Wasa took more than a year to repair the damaged lines, an official said that it was difficult the authority to identify the leaks as they were large in number.

Halim a young man who was carrying water for his house in the Cha block said: " I don't know who is responsible for the problem and I don't want to know either. All I want is fresh water. Like me none can compromise with this demand and if any one creates an obstacle, people would turn violent."