Six years on Water Supply Schemes Still Not Functional,Fetch Water From Nallah’s: Locals
Mohammad Yaseen Malik
Pattan, Aug 22: scores of residents of Aglar Goushbugh of Pattan town of north Kashmir’s Baramulla district took up to the main raod, to protest against the jalshakti (PHE) Department due to the scarcity of water faced by people from, almost a decade.
Aglar, Goushbugh and Ussan are facing shortage of water,
“We have to fetch water from local Nallah’s in other places,the PHE department is least bothered about our problem,” said a protester Mohammad Ashraf.
The residents are affected by water scarcity, Facing lot of problems due to the lack of safe and drinking water.Every day the people of the area striving to fetch drinking water, usually women and girls walk miles to get drinking water, said Irfan bhat, a resident of Aglar.
The water from local nallah is usually full of diseases and makes us and our families very sick, ussually the water we collect is not purified he adds.
As the water scarcity in these areas from long time,they have to fetch water from other places, it is common for women by making arduous 1 to 2 kilometers long trek Saveral times a day for household needs,which took us hours to get the safe water said a lady Rubeena who was protesting with an empty bucket.
The narrow water cannal runs past many houses, barely a few meters from the doorways are summed up with mud and other debris which polluted the water and makes the life of villagers more miserable,if we cleaned the cannal where will we take the wastage ? a group of protesters said.
The water cannal is fully clogged and mostly water in the cannal remains stagnant and a foul smell that emanates from the canal makes the surrounding areas unliveable said Adil bhat a local resident.
Now the cannal has been blocked at Wanigam Kreeri, where from will we get the water through cannals which has hindered the flow of water, he adds.
The residents said that we requested concerned officials several times to personally look into the matter to mitigate the problem being faced by us, they only said that the problem will be addressed soon but till now nothing had done said a group of protesters.
Although we have four completed water tanks in three villages which would be our reliable source of water but so far they are not-functional yet as we are sceptical about its completion.
Locals appealed to higher authorities to take swift action and to resolve public grievance and make the schemes functional as soon as possible, so that we get some sigh of relief from this affection and live life without hardships.
Meanwhile Sub District Magistrate (SDM) Pattan, Syed Faheem said that Goushbugh, Aglar and Ussan area have already an under construction scheme In which 80% of the work have been completed and the further work on this is designed, i have spoken to Jal shakti department about the matter and We are hopeful that the department will respond to the request soon and will start work on it soon.
Now the issue is shortage of water in cannal whose water source comes from Wanigam nallah which have dried up, due to dry spell and the dredging work will be done in coming days.
I have already asked DC Baramulla for extra tankers and am adding these villages on the prior, inshaAllah till the dredging work they will get water tankers, he added.
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