WATER WOES AMID HEATWAVE: Residents in Kupwara’s Qaziabad hold protest against water shortage

Kupwara, Jul 2: Dozens of women from Kralpora village of Kralgund in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district Wednesday staged a protest in the area, alleging that they were going through enduring hardships due to lack of drinking water.

Carrying empty buckets and utensils as a mark of protest, women had assembled at the village crossing and blocked the interior roads to press for their demand of having access to drinking water. "We have been suffering due to lack of drinking water for the last two months but the situation has worsened drastically over the past ten days. The Jal Shakti Department even after approaching several times haven't taken any concrete steps to mitigate our problem," said a protesting woman.

The protesters said that the ongoing water shortage has disrupted their daily life badly, forcing them to use contaminated water from local streams. "The situation has particularly affected women from Kralpora village, who are forced to walk long distances to manage household water needs. We spend hours every day fetching water," they said. "The concerned department has taken us for a ride, forcing us to register our protest. We had pleaded for a water tanker on a daily basis but even that seemed to be a distant dream for us," said a protestor. The protesters said that if their demand was not fulfilled, they would be forced to hit the roads again.

Meanwhile, a Jal Shakti Department official said that due to prevailing dry spell, the water level in most of the water bodies have receded to record low causing water shortage problem in several villages. "Since a brief spell of rainfall was recorded on Wednesday afternoon, we are hopeful that the water level will increase with the result the problem of water scarcity will get redressed," he added.