Handwash without water!

Barely a month after assuming office at Raj Bhawan, LtGovernor Grish Chandra Murmu had sensed the consequences of chronic problemswith our drinking water distribution. Speaking to senior officials on 29November 2019, Mr. Murmu touched the right pulse when he declared that everyhousehold in the Union Territory would be able to access clean drinking waterby the end of 2021, an ambitious deadline that precedes the national target of2024. Few weeks after this announcement, most of the Kashmir Valley witnessedworst ever shortage of drinking water. Several areas of the summer capitalSrinagar’s north and south zones are still gasping for the most essentialsupply, more so in the challenging times of the Covid-19 pandemic.

One wonders whether the crisis cropped up due to chronicflaws in the distribution system or the officers at the helm did not take theirnotes right when Lt Guv Murmu was making the widely appreciated announcement.At a time when frequent hand wash has emerged as key defense against the killervirus, Kashmir’s Public Health Engineering (Jal Shakti Vibhag) department isrationing the water supply rather than fixing the rot in the distributionsystem.

   

Across Kashmir Valley, the PHE is managing 24 divisions andeach division is well-staffed with senior engineers and experts. All theseexperts have never been held responsible for the crisis and in the absence ofaccountability they keep peddling lies to the media when the crisis turns uglyat some places. Gullible masses are told that the shortage of drinking water isdue to scarcity of the resources. Nobody mentions the worn out and crumblingdistribution network in both Jammu as well as Kashmir division.

Taking the cue from LG Murmu, Kashmir’s DivisionalCommissioner Mr. P K Pole is also trying to restore the people’s faith in thecivil administration. Without any aggressive PR campaign, Mr. Pole is gettingpopular even during the lockdown. He is so easily accessible that he respondsto hundreds of anonymous calls and texts everyday and tries to mitigate theproblems people are facing in these troubled times. But the sloth and lethargyprevalent among higher officials of the PHE might have skipped Mr. Pole’sattention. A resident from Minto Circle Colony, Alucha Bagh recently called atop notch officer of PHE ahead of the Sikh festival Bisakhi and complained ofwater shortage. The officer was so agitated that he hung up on him saying “naihai pani, jao karo kya karna hai.” This speaks volumes about the lack ofaccountability even in the departments, which are on the frontline in the waragainst Covid-19. One expects Mr. Pole to seek answers to following questionsfrom the PHE officials if he feels that water crisis is an emergency when thepeople are being advised frequent hand wash by no less than the prime ministerhimself.

Long ago GoI approved more than 2500 Water Supply Schemes(WSSs), 934 for Kashmir, 1566 for Jammu. Only 200 schemes have seenimplementation and those too are suffering design flaws and distribution lossesdue to leakage.

Rs.385 Cr loan was raised from ADB to augment the system.Did the money vanish in thin air?

Between 2004-2010, PHE got Rs. 5000 Cr (Rs.500 Cr per annum)central aid under NRDWP. Why the obsolete distribution system and inefficientfiltration is still a burning issue?

According to a survey conducted by National Institute ofTransforming India, a GoI institute, of 20,25,088 households only 63.9% haveaccess to clean drinking water. Has PHE ever presented before the governmentany long, short or medium term plan to tackle the crisis?

According to a health department survey 41 towns inKashmir’s 10 districts are vulnerable to deadly water-borne diseases due toleakage of sewerage lines into the drinking water lines. How can we fightCovid-19 when our systemic failure is making us even more vulnerable?

The engineers at Jammu woke to the problem of High DensityPolyethylene (HDP) pipes and withheld the tenders worth Rs.100 Cr till thecontractors ensured that Ductile Iron (DI) pipes would be used. If the newfindings have established that horizontal water distribution is adequate andleak-proof through DI pipes only, who approved HDPs for downtown, from Hawal toZakura? Don’t our engineers know that DI pipes are 26% more reliable than HDPs?Will the current fixture turn out to be future disasters?

Even as Kashmir is grappling with the global pandemicCovid-19, the unconcerned officials at PHE seem to want us practice frequenthan dwash without water. Lt. Guv Murmu, Chief Secretary BVR Subramaniam andDivisional Commissioner Mr. P K Pole are competent enough to cause a turnaroundin Kashmir. As Mr. Murmu has indicated by his initial announcement, watersupply is not just a key to public wellbeing but also an insurance against thepandemics like Covid-19. The official apathy and sloth might hamper PrimeMinister Narendra Modi’s Jal Jeevan Mission and our top administrators need tostay alert to that. The PHE top brass cannot hide behind the excuse that theyhave deputed 102 water tankers across the city. Tankers are a stopgaparrangement, not a solution. If the current lot of officers lack expertise aswell as integrity, we would happily welcome a different lot of officers so thatthe promise made by Mr. Murmu holds true before the year 2021 elapses.

Author is social activist

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