Budgam, March 25: The people from the Chata Bugh village in this central Kashmir’s Budgam district on Saturday held a protest against the Public Health Engineering (PHE) department, demanding proper water supply in the ongoing holy month of Ramadhan.
Scores of women assembled near the railway track in the village and chanted slogans in support of their demands. They said that due to the shortage of water supply for more than a month, they are facing a lot of difficulties.
“For more than a month, we have not received potable water supply to our homes, but are using stream water for drinking and cooking purposes, which poses a risk to our health,” one of the women told Rising Kashmir.
Another woman said they have been suffering a lot due to the shortage of water. “We have to fetch water from the stream which is more than a mile away from our village,” she said, adding, “We have to wash the uniforms of our children but the water we fetch from the stream is not enough. It takes a lot of time and effort.”
The protesters said that water is an essential basic service that should be provided to the general public all the time. “The PHE department should at least keep in view the holy month of Ramadhan. They must now restore proper water supply to the village at the earliest,” they said.
Executive Engineer of Public Health Engineering Division Budgam, Shakeel-ul-Rehman, said the department has already sent the water supply vehicle to the village. “We are also going to restore the water supply to the village tomorrow (Sunday),” he said.
He added, “As one of the spare parts of the pipeline was not working properly, we brought that from outside of J&K, and are going to fix it into the pipeline tomorrow so that the water supply will be fully restored to the village.”
