Lalitpur, April 4:

Locals today destroyed four wells on the premises of the Patan Industrial Estate (PIE) here after the four industries inside the PIE agreed to stop using the wells.

The PIE had been drawing water from these wells for 35 years.

The amount of water flowing through the Patan Sundhara stone spouts used to decrease whenever the industries drew water from the four wells, thus proving that the source of water feeds water to the stone spouts at Sundhara, Anup Raj Shakya, chairman of the ward number 6 committee, said.

The source lies at a distance of about one-and-a-half km from Sundhara.

A meeting held yesterday between delegates led by the locals of Sundhara, including locals of ward numbers 6, 7, 8, 9 and 17, and the PIE had resolved a year-long controversy over the rights over the source that feeds water to the stone spouts located on the PIE premises.

Said Anand Karki, acting manager of the PIE: “We decided to close down the wells that we had been using for four decades.”