Suhail Rather
Bandipora: The Chitteybandy villagers of north Kashmir’s Bandipora district are complaining of a ‘crisis’ like situation as the large population is left without supply water due to the alleged lax attitude of PHE’s Jal Shakti department.
Claiming that they are forced to utilise unfiltered water for drinking and eating purposes from a nearby stream as the supply water is not available.
The acute water shortage has mainly hit Seer Mohalla and adjoining Mohallas of the village, who is a protest have threatened to launch an agitation if their demands were not fulfilled in time by the Jal Shakti department.
“We have a shortage of water and are being forced to utilise contaminated water. Despite repeated pleas to the officials of the PHE department nothing has happened so far,” the locals said.
Shabir Ahmad, another villager said, “There are just a few water posts available in our area most of which are defunct as officials hardly pay any visit to the area”.
Due to the non-availability of drinking water, we have been suffering immensely for the last four months. The women have to fetch water from far off areas during these conditions, Shabir said further.
Locals say the Jal Shakti department should have made water available to mitigate the sufferings of the people.
“The department is doing nothing due to which the problems of the people have compounded,” the residents added.
The locals said the taps and water supply lines are defunct in the area, ‘but the Jal Shati department authorities are not even trying to make any alternate arrangements for providing the water to the people.
“If the problem persists we would have no option but to launch an agitation”, they said.
An Executive Engineer of Jal Shakti department, assured that they will look into the complaints of residents.
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