Water supply to Noida’s Sector 19 was disrupted on Tuesday evening due to pipeline repair work in Sector 27, officials said, prompting residents to once again raise concerns over what they described as “long-standing water supply and quality issues” in the locality.RC Gupta, president of the Sector 19 RWA said the sector has been grappling with water-related issues for nearly two decades. (HT Archive)Residents said the sector receives water only twice a day — from 6am to 9am and again from 6pm to 9pm — and households largely depend on overhead storage tanks to meet their daily needs. On Tuesday evening, however, the supply remained disrupted. Residents said they were initially informed that services would be restored by 8pm, but supply resumed only around 9.30pm.“Although it is difficult to manage with such limited supply on a daily basis, we somehow make it work. But when even that supply is disrupted, it becomes very difficult for the sector to function,” said RC Gupta, president of the Sector 19 residents’ welfare association (RWA).Gupta said the sector has been grappling with water-related issues for nearly two decades.“The problem has persisted for the last 20 years. There are occasional improvements, but it has existed from the beginning and has never really been resolved,” he said.Sector 19, comprising blocks A, B and C, has an estimated population of around 25,000, including tenants.Residents have also repeatedly raised concerns about water quality. Rajendra Upadhyay, a resident of Block B, alleged that the water supplied to the sector is often muddy and contaminated.“Sometimes there is a lot of mud in the water. At times, it feels like groundwater is being supplied,” he said.Upadhyay further alleged that pipeline damage during repair work may have led to contamination. “I saw that during repairs, sewage water may have entered the pipelines. After that, I started buying packaged drinking water. In the last one and a half years, I have spent around ₹50,000 on water alone,” he said.Responding to the complaints, Ashok Verma, senior manager at the Noida jal department, said the disruption was caused by repair work on a pipeline in Sector 27.“There was work being carried out on a pipeline in Sector 27, which led to the disruption. The problem has now been fixed,” Verma said.On residents’ concerns regarding long-term water supply issues in the sector, Verma said the matter was being examined by the department.