Shopian, Nov 24: Wadipora Imam Sahib village, home to around sixty households, of south Kashmir’s Shopian district continues to face shortage of water since May 2018 as Public Health Engineering (PHE) authorities have failed to solve the issue of water crisis here.
Residents of Wadipora told Kashmir Images that it has been almost 7 months and they have not seen a single drop of water flowing from their taps. “Wadipora is supplied water from Hindew village of Shopian district under Rampathri water supply scheme.”
“In the month of April this year, the water pipes were replaced in Wadipora but the officials of PHE department informed us that they fell short of only two pipes and those two pipes are not being made available to solve the water crisis in our village,” they added.
They further said that they are being forced to use impure water of canals, while as some of the residents are relying on wells and in order to draw from them they need electricity which remains scarce in the district. “For a last couple of days, water tanks were made available in our area to tackle the water crisis in our area but now the service has been stopped by the department.”
One of the residents of the village, Farooq Ahmad, said: “Whenever we have raised the issue with the PHE employees, they ask us to visit higher officials; while as higher officials are making fake promises only as they have done nothing to solve the issue. We have approached Sub-district Magistrate (SDM) Zainapora also with the same issue but to no avail.”
Executive Engineer PHE Division Shopian denied the claims of people saying it is not possible that a village in the district has suffered water crisis for such a longtime, however he assured to send a team of officials in the area to take stock of the situation.
