Nurpur Shahan residents without clean drinking water

Yasir Ilyas

ISLAMABAD, July 2, 2010: The residents of Nurpur Shahan, a village situated just five kilometres from the Constitution Avenue where the high and mighty live, do not even have the facility of clean drinking water.

The village has a supply line of water, like other parts of the capital, but water does not flow through it. Water has become a rare commodity for the residents of this village.

Sources in the Capital Development Authority (CDA) said that people residing in Nurpur Shahan get water through the headworks. According to them, people residing around the shrine of Barri Imam have installed illegal water connections through the main Simly Dam supply line. Water is released from the Nurpur Shahan Headworks once a day, but it does not reach the tail-end because people living in houses at the start use suction-pumps at supply time to draw all water. According to sources, another major source of water is tubewells, but they are also drying up due to drastic drop in the groundwater level.

The residents living at the tail-end of the water supply line said that the only source left for them to get drinking water is leakages in the main supply line at different points.

Mohammad Ramazan said: “People gather in large numbers in the evening at water leakage points. The leaking water falls into the nullah through pipes. People gather at these spots with cans to get water for drinking”.

Saddam, another resident, said: “We obtain drinking water from these spots, as we do not have any other option”.

Thirteen-year-old Mustafa and his elder brother Irfan were also standing in the queue, waiting for their turn to fill their pots with water flowing from a leaking pipe falling to the ground from a height of about eight feet.

“We come here to get water for drinking every day,” they said.

An old woman, Taj Bibi, said: “We have no option but to drink leaking water as there is no water in the dam”.

People arrive early at water leaking points and sit there to have a little chit chat before filling their containers with water. Women also wash clothes in the nullah.

Sadaqat Hussain, an old resident, said that the government should look into the matter before an epidemic hits the village.