Kupwara residents ‘forced’ to drink polluted water
Kupwara district administration must intervene and provide a sigh of relief to the residents: Locals
Kupwara, 16 April: Residents of Kupwara Town have accused the Public Health Engineering department (PHE)/ Jal Shakti Department of failure to provide safe drinking water to the people of District Headquarter Kupwara.
The residents said that around 20,000 persons in Kupwara town are served tap water from a polluted water stream.
“We are forced to use the contaminated water supplied by Jal Shakti Department Kupwara, due to shortage of potable water from many days,” said Tariq Ahmad, resident of Kupwara.
He said that due to the incessant rains during past, the water in nallahs and ponds has become muddy and unsafe for human consumption and same has been supplied to the people without proper filtration.
“Now that alternative sources of water have been rendered unsafe due to the incessant rains, we are left with no source of potable water. The department concerned is testing our patience,” said Mohammad Aazim resident of Kupwara town. He said that the filtration plant at Wayan Kupwara is supplying unfiltered water to the people of Kupwara town.
Official at PHE division Kupwara admitted and said that it is absolutely true that we are not providing clean water to the people of Kupwara due to the incessant rains during past, PHE Line has been damaged at Marsari area of Kupwara, he added.
It is pertinent to mention here that in 2018 two Kupwara villages hit by water borne diseases.
Locals said that if the PHE department is not providing clean/ filtered water to the people then what is the need of this department and said that if the filtration plants are not working then why these filtration plants have not been replaced or upgraded yet ? Why are they fooling people, said the locals.
“At a time when the UT administration has designed different schemes aimed to provide clean and filtered tap water to each household, here in district headquarters, people are being deprived of clean and filtered water. The Kupwara district administration must intervene and provide a sigh of relief to the residents,” said Tariq Ahmad Mir, a resident of Kupwara town.
Pic Used for Representational Only
File Photo Attached
