North Block dries up, govt employees reel under water shortage

The North Block is current receiving around 50,000 litres of water daily instead of its requirement of 1.5 lakh litres resulting in most of the toilets, water coolers going dry most of the time.

While the stench from the toilets makes it difficult to move in the corridors, at times even drinking water is scarce, heightening the misery of employees who are sweating it out in the summer with temperature hovering around 43-45 degree Celsius these days.

Packaged water is the only source of drinking water for many of the officials.

Home Ministry spokesperson Ira Joshi denied that there was crisis of drinking water but said efforts were on to resolve the scarcity in toilets and other places.

"We are working on it," she said.

Apart from the Ministries of Home and Finance, North Block also houses the Ministry of Personnel and large establishments of the Intelligence Bureau and Income Tax Department.

Home Minister P Chidambaram, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Minister of State for Personnel V Narayanswami, two Ministers of State for Home, two Ministers of State for Finance and a host of top bureaucrats sit here. (More)