Water treatment plants to have armed guards

The water treatment plants and booster pumping stations of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) across the city are now going to have armed security guards for security. The KMC has come up with this decision after officials of Water Supply department have reported about sabotage in the water treatment and supply infrastructures. The civic body has also decided to deploy guards with batons at all its overhead reservoirs. A senior KMC official said, "Water, which is a life-giver, can be a killer if there is contamination of any sort. In recent times, there have been reports of outsiders loitering in and around some water treatment plants and booster pumping stations. There are security guards armed with batons and they have complained that in some cases the 'outsiders' have tried to get closer to such water infrastructure. Apart from the contamination angle, we are not ruling out theft of machineries either. This step is a precautionary measure to prevent any untoward entry". Mainak Mukherjee, director of Water Supply of KMC had earlier placed this proposal of deploying armed guards which recently received the nod from the Mayor-in-Council. Another KMC official said, "We will have armed security guards at all five of our water treatment plants and 35 booster pumping stations. There will be three shifts and in each shift there will be an armed guard and another guard with baton".