18 years on, water scarcity continues in this village
Bakshibal water supply scheme yet be made functional
Tauseef Ahmad
BANDIPORA, Oct 7: The residents of Mukdumyari village of North Kashmir’s Bandipora district have accused Jal Shakti department for failing to provide portable drinking water to them.
Talking to the Kashmir Despatch, one of the local residents Abdul Samad Dar said that the work on a water supply scheme for the area was started in 2004 at Bakshibal Hajin but even after 18 years the department has utterly failed to provide the target villages with potable drinking water.
The residents alleged that the Jal Shakti department has forced them to take filthy water from nearby streams. “A narrow pipeline was laid from the water supply scheme to the water tank in Mukdumyari Bandipora,but it seems the pipeline was laid only to extract money for the contractors,” alleged one of the residents of the said village on the condition of anonymity.
“We are being forced to fetch dirty water from nearby streams because there is no proper water supply in the area,” the locals said, adding that despite repeated attempts by the locals to invite the attention of the district administration nothing positive has happened sofar on the ground.
“Whenever we have guests in our homes we purchase packaged water from the market as we don’t have any other source of drinking water in our village,” he told the Kashmir Despatch.
The locals alleged that the water pipeline has been laid just to draw money from the state exchequer and hoodwink the higher authorities that the potable water has been provided to every household in the area.
He also said that the Jal-Shakti department has left them at God’s mercy, adding that the department has miserably failed to provide drinking water to them.
Despite repeated attempts the concerned officials were not available for the comments. However, the residents appealed the deputy commissioner Bandipora and concerned officials of the department to look into the matter and resolve their genuine grievances as soon as possible.
