Water crisis deepens in Mansehra

MANSEHRA: The water crisis has deepened in the city and its suburbs owing to the ongoing dry-spell in Hazara Division.

“The tehsil municipal administration has already suspended water supply from its two schemes and wells. And the hand pumps have dried up as the underground water reservoirs plunged further because of the current dry spell in the district,” Muhammad Arif Rajpoot, a local, told reporters here on Tuesday.

Men and women, even children could be seen lined up on the streets to fetch water from such houses where water is available in wells and hand pumps.

“I have never seen such a situation where women of our area are lined up in queues on streets along with their utensils in search of water,” said Rajpoot.

Another local, Mohammad Ayub, said that the water shortage was a chronic issue for the people but it had taken an ugly turn as the underground water level had dropped significantly.

“In 2007, one could get water from around 70 feet down through the hand pump but water has dropped significantly in 2015. And now water is available at around 200-feet below the surface,” he added.

He said the local politicians were playing politics over the water issue.

“The chief minister had signed a memorandum of understanding with Saudi Arabia government for gravity flow water supply scheme with Rs5 billion funds but over a year passed and this project is still in the doldrums,” said Ayub.