Residents of a village in this district on Tuesday accused the authorities at Public Health Engineering (PHE) for failing to provide water supply to them for the past one year.
Each day a huge crowd of people of Haikripora village gather around a community tap, around one-and-a-half km from the village, with buckets, pots and other containers to fetch water. The village comprise of around 65 households, said a local.
“The unavailability of the drinking water in the village has left residents with no option but to travel outside the village to fetch the water from the community tap or a nearby stream,” said a local.
Another villager, Abdul Ahad said there was no source of water to them except community tap. “It takes us hours to wait for our turn to fetch a bucket of water,” said Ahad. “The department has made our life a hell. Living in this village feels like a curse because on many occasions people fight with each other in order to get the turn first to fetch a single bucket of water.”
He said the quality of the water received through the tap was so impure that many people have fallen ill in the past.”I myself fell ill last month and was diagnosed with typhoid. In these times when whole Kashmir is economically strangulated visiting hospitals and falling sick add to the miseries,” he said.
Last year, the residents said, the PHE employees visited the village to assess the situation and assured to install new supply lines. “More than a year has passed but there is no progress and in fact the situation has gone from bad to worse,” he said.
Another resident, Salaam Dar said there was no water for domestic purpose, or irrigation of agriculture land. “The only source of water for our agriculture land is an irrigation pump which supplies water once in two weeks,” said Dar.
Executive Engineer PHE Pulwama division Mushtaq Ahmad said the village was located at a tail end of a spring and thus receives very little supply. “Due to draught like condition this year, the situation has worsened,” Ahmad said.
However, he said the department has planned a project under Jal Jeevan Mission particularly for the Haikripora village. “We will install tube wells in the entire village besides laying new and wide pipelines. We have got the approval to the proposal and my team is on the job,” he said. Ahmad said Rs 4.46 crore have been approved for the plan and within two years the project will be completed.