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| In times of development, Singhpora villages crave for safe drinking water & motorable Roads | | | Jehangir Rashid
At a time when the state government claims that they have been able to provide basic amenities to the people living across the length and breadth of the state, there are many instances which counter this claim. One among such instances is the Singhpora block in North Kashmir's Baramulla district.
Thousands of people living in three villages (Trikolbal, Gund-I-Ibrahim and Zadi Mohalla) of this block are forced to drink un-filtered water since no filtration takes place at the water tank where the water gets collected. People of Trikolbal, Gund-I-Ibrahim and Zadi Mohalla have raised their voice against this glaring problem but this has fallen on deaf ears so far.
"Upto 2011, people used to collect the water from the river and then use this water for drinking and other purposes. In the year 2011, the Public Health Engineering (PHE) department dug a tube-well in the Trikolbal villages and pipes were laid for water supply. Public posts also came up so that people could get the water from there, so far so good but the worse happened later on," said Mohammad Akbar Bhat, president, Village Welfare Committee, Gund-I-Ibrahim.
Mohammad Akbar Bhat said that the PHE department made no provision either for collection of water or for filtration before the water could be supplied to the people of the three villages. He said raw water was supplied to the people from the tube-well via the pipes which were already laid by the department.
"The direct supply of water from tube-well continued for more than one year. There was no difference between this type of water and water collected directly from the river by the people. During the early part of this year, the department constructed the water tank to accumulate water. However, the filtration part has been left by the department and there is no progress on this front," said president, Village Welfare Committee.
Akbar said that when they raised the issue of filtration with the concerned officials, the officials said that they add bleaching powder to the water before being supplied to the people through pipe lines. He said truth can come out only when a sample of water is taken for testing at a laboratory.
Having a cursory look at a sample of water, one can easily see the impurities moving around. This negates the claims about filtration made by the concerned officials.
"The water from the tube well is lifted to the water tank before being supplied to the people. As and when the power goes off, the whole system collapses with the people being forced to collect water from the river. Last week the power got disconnected for two days and as such no water could be supplied from the tube-well. This happens more so in winter when the power supply is erratic," said the president, Village Welfare Committee.
Akbar said that the department should immediately sanction a generator for the tube-well so that the water supply is continuous keeping in view the regular power cuts. "The PHE officials at Pattan recently told that the file about sanctioning of generator has been sent to Baramulla as they cannot take decision on their own."
Roads are considered a major link between Urban and Rural areas and in the absence of good roads it cannot be expected that public transport would reach at every nook and corner of any part of the state. The condition of roads in Trikolbal, Gund-I-Ibrahim and Zadi Mohalla is so bad that transporters are not ready to operate services for these villages.
The three kilometers stretch of road from Hanjiweera to Trikolbal is in motorable condition, nonetheless, the condition becomes dilapidated once a person enters Trikolbal village. The road gets from bad to worse as one traverses through the main roads of Trikolbal, Gund-I-Ibrahim and Zadi Mohalla.
"I can say that Singhpora block is the most underdeveloped block of the state. There is no development at all and people living are in primitive times. There is so much of dust on roads that it gets difficult to walk on them. Seeing the condition of roads in other districts, I have no hesitation in saying that there are no roads in our village," said Mohd.Akbar Bhat. Due to the bad conditions of roads, only few Tata Sumos operate on the Pattan-Trikolbal route. Since not many people live outside Hanjiweera village, no Tata Sumo or any other service operates in this village. As such, people of Trikolbal, Gund-I-Ibrahim and Zadi Mohalla generally walk either upto Pattan or Hanjiweera in order to reach to the district headquarters of Baramulla or for that matter any other place.
"Most of our time gets consumed in walking upto Hanjiweera or Pattan and many times we are not able to accomplish tasks for which we leave from our homes. The transporters say that they cannot operate services since the roads are bad with pots and ditches and that makes the movement of the vehicles almost impossible," said president, Village Welfare Committee.
Concerned officials of Rural Development Department (RDD) after repeated persuasion and pleas from the people have started some work on the roads but that is almost nothing. The RDD have taken up the roads with just a bit of soiling being done so far. This instead of giving relief to the people may cause further trouble to them.
"Few days' back the process of soiling was taken up but as of now no rolling has taken place. If there is rainfall or snowfall in near future then there would be more trouble to us since there would be mud on the roads leading to difficulty in moving around. The concerned officials should look into this matter so that the supporting work is taken accordingly," said Mohannad Akbar Bhat.
This article is part of Indo Global Social Service Society's (IGSSS) third Media Traineeship Programme in Jammu and Kashmir under its project "Empowering the Vulnerable: Strengthening grassroots governance and empowering civil society action in conflict affected areas of Kashmir".
The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect views of Indo Global Social Service Society (IGSSS). Feedback is welcome at [email protected]. |
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