Villages along border face water shortage
Tribune News Service

Balakote-Mendhar (Poonch), February 8
Every morning, Saleema Begum (40), a housewife, treks down 3 km from her native village situated along the LoC to get a bucket of water to cook food for her children. This practice of fetching water from a spring has not changed for her even as she has to brave harsh weather sometimes. Similar is the condition of residents of several other villages along the border.

Though her village is being supplied an adequate quantity of drinking water in government records, practically it does not get even enough water for drinking purpose.

“There are water pipes here, but the department concerned does not supply water. What is the purpose of installing water supply pipes when clean drinking water is not supplied daily. Since water is needed for almost all domestic chores from cooking to washing clothes, we have no other option but to fetch it from the springs, which are situated far from here”, complains Saleema.

“It is not easy to get water from these springs also since there is a huge rush of people. Sometimes, it takes hours to get water”. She suggests that the government should first provide clean drinking water on a regular basis and then think of introducing information technology in these sectors.

“Since the Water Supply Department supplies water once in two-three days, we are facing a lot of problems”, another resident Shakeel Khan said.

“We have brought the problem of water shortage in our area to the notice of the department many times, but it had done nothing till now. However, we hope the young Chief Minister would help resolve our problem.”

Meanwhile, efforts to contact senior officials of the Water Supply Department here did not yield result. However, a junior officer, while admitting that there was a water shortage in the area, said the problem was not as severe as it was made to look.