Peerzada Arshad Hamid

Khui (Baramulla)

For the family of Ghulam Rasool Sheikh getting water for domestic use is an uphill task. Everyday the womenfolk in his house had to drive handcart to a neighbouring village, four kilometers away, to fill water in barrels and plastic tanks from a canal.

Sheikh's family in village Aglar of Khui belt is just one among hundreds of others, who follow similar techniques to meet their daily water requirements. The practice is going on in these villages like this for last so many decades.

Nowadays well off families in the village ensure the delivery of water tanks inside their homes at a cost. For a tractor carrying 1600 liters of water, they have to pay Rs 500. "Since diesel pumps are used to fill the tanks and barrels and then ferry the same to houses, we charge them the freight that is incurred on the delivery of water barrels," says Ashraf Dar, a tractor driver.

However, for Sheikh spending sum of Rs 500 everyday on water requirement alone is quite unaffordable. People like Sheikh continue to use handcarts to ferry the tanks and barrels filled with water manually, to use it back home.

 "Keeping in view my daily income, I can't think of spending such an amount on water for entire one month and not to talk of a single day. I am a poor man and my family brings water like this even daring rains and harsh winters," he said.

"I don't see any hope in the government and for me water is as precious as oil," says pessimistic Sheikh.

Non-availability of portable drinking water to the people living in this area is adding up to the worries of villagers. Repeated pleas to the district administration and politicians has not yield any desired result.

Though Public Health Engineering (PHE) department has covered the area under piped water supply but regular water supply to the area is still a distant dream. People say they rarely get tap water. "In a period of one month we receive water supply once or twice for one hour only. So who would rely on that," said Ghulam Mohammed Bhat, an octogenarian in village.

Bhat says the villagers face a lot of difficulties in wake of water shortage. Women folk in the village have to walk miles to wash dishes and clothes in unhygienic channel. Village elders inform that in past their elders used to bath once in two months and rarely washed their clothes.

"Successive governments have deliberately ignored us. Since we live a village they don't bother to care about us. Officials spend money in a wrong manner to fill their pockets. One serious thought to this problem can quench over years of thirst," said Abdul Hamid Bhat, another villager.

Some people in the village managed to dig hand pumps, however the water contains dirt and grit. Its quality has been found unhygienic for consumption. The water has pungent smell and good quantity of Sulphur and iron in it. Even government too is said to have dug a well but that too proved to be a failure.

"The wells in the village emanate gas for some time and dry up fast," said a villager.

Officials at PHE Baramulla admit that these villages face acute water shortage but complain the paucity of funds a reason for not ensuring the water supply.

Technical experts say that water supply scheme Ferozepora that stands already sanctioned for the area need to be upgraded. The source of this scheme is natural spring. 

The outskirts of Sringar and Jammu cities too remain hit by absence of continuous supply of drinking water.

Although state government claims that it has taken up several projects to ensure water supply to the people, the huge gap between demand and supply is causing lot of hardships to the residents.