If there are no pipelines, how do you expect us to provide them water says Executive engineer Jal Shakti Department Bandipora
Qaiser Dar
Bandipora 05 October(KNB): People from different villages of the district Bandipora have been worrisome for years about the primary necessity of life, facing an acute shortage of drinking water.
Protestors took to the roads and raised slogans against the concerned authority. Since the promises made by concerned ‘Jal Shakti Department’ in the past have not been fulfilled on the ground, the people of this district roared with rage against it.
A senior resident among many protestors said, “we don’t have the availability of drinking water in our areas. Our health, our children’s’ health are at stake because of the incompetence of the concerned officials. We are suffering day in and out for years now”.
These protestors accused the officials of Jal Shakti Department of being irresponsible towards their duty. It was also mentioned that water connections have been provided to few families with good ties to the officials of the department, without any legal paper work.
“We have spoken to many official, put forth our problems to them in person but they hardly seem to care about it”, a local resident said.
When Kashmir News Bureau contacted Executive engineer, Jal Shakti Department, Bandipora, on phone he said, “The areas where the water pipelines have been installed and are still not able to receive drinkable water is a different issue than that of the areas where the water pipelines have not been installed yet. Our concern is the former issue and we are working onto that but the latter issue comes under the Jal Jeevan mission and cannot be worked upon by Jal Shakti department”.
“We cannot be of any service to the houses which come under the Jal Jeevan mission for now. Once they will be provide a water pipeline connection after that the department of Jal Shakti can work on their queries, If there are no pipelines, how do you expect us to provide them water? Jal Jeevan mission have already prepared detailed project reports (DPR) and will be working to install the pipelines. The department has 155 Cr. project through which every house hold must have a pipeline supply for water.”
Upon being questioned about the time frame going to take to solve these pipeline issues, he responded, “It is a government policy and every measure is being taken to finish the mission as soon as possible but it obviously won’t be achieved within a single night, it takes time”.
“The residents of these villages need to be patient while the work takes it’s course”, he added.
Through different governmental schemes a lot of funds have been provided to Jal Jeevan Mission raising many legitimate questions about the utilization of these funds, since the people of these villages are still suffering.(KNB)