Report in Dawn, Dec 24th, 2020
KHYBER: Hundreds of families in different parts of Bara tehsil face acute shortage of drinking water due to closure of two irrigation canals from Spera Dam and closure of a number of tubewells due to power loadshedding.
The residents of Jansi, Dora Gandaw, Tendi and Spera localities said that the right and left link canals from Spera Dam were closed by irrigation department almost two months ago for desilting.
They said that majority of residents of the areas were fetching drinking water from those canals. Closure of the canals caused suspension of water supply to them for daily use, they added.
Javed Afridi, a local resident, told Dawn that some welfare organisations and philanthropists arranged for free distribution of drinking water through water tankers but a large number of people, mostly women and children, were forced to fetch water in buckets and drums from far-off localities.
He said that the underground water table in those areas was low and they had no tubewell to cater to their needs. Turab Ali, a resident of Sipah, said that tubewells in other localities too became dysfunctional owing to power loadshedding while solar panel-run machines could not extract water.
Officials of the irrigation department told Dawn that it would take another two months to complete desilting of the tunnels and irrigation canals.
However, they said that water from Spera Dam would be released in the canals once or twice a month to supply drinking water to local people at a limited scale.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1597467/bara-people-face-water-shortage
