Blocked pipeline causes water crisis in Pulwama village

Pulwama, Nov 29 : The residents of Talamgam village in south Kashmir's Pulwama district are facing acute water crisis due to a blocked water pipeline that supplies water to the area.

According to the residents, the blockade was found near Tangpuna village more than a year ago, but it has not yet been cleared, spurring the residents to consume  unfiltered water.

Ghulam Qadir , a resident said that the pipeline was laid some 40 years ago and has not been replaced since then, making it susceptible to recurrent blockages.

Pandit said that they approached the authorities umpteen times but to no avail.

“Finally we were informed that the pipeline is dead”, Qadir said. The authorities, more than a decade ago, constructed an overhead water tank but it sans a filtration process.

“The water supplied from this tank is unfit for drinking”, said Qadir.

He said that the water could not be used to do laundry, let alone for drinking. Qadir said that the water was being directly fed from a nearby stream into the tank using suction pipes.

"Even  sometimes carcasses are lying in the stream", he said.

Many residents said that a threat of water borne diseases was looming over the village. They said that the Jal Shakti Department sent  a water tanker  once a week, which was quite inadequate to meet the residents' consumption demands.

" Our village comprises 225 households. How a single water tanker could fulfill the demands of people of this sizeable population ", asked the residents.

The residents appealed to the authorities to restore the pipeline forthwith. A senior official from  the Jal Shakti Department told Greater Kashmir that the department would look into the matter.  " We will address the issue on a priority basis", added the official.