When we talk of border or LoC, the first and foremost thing that comes to our mind is repeated firing and shelling from the other side of the border. The people living on the border are now become used to a phenomenon that makes life insecure and unstable day in and day out. This has become part and parcel of the life of people living on the border. But apart from this, very few people turn their attention to a host of other difficulties that make life miserable for the people on the border.
Balakot is a village situated very close to the border in Poonch district. This is a hilly area and people are scattered over hillocks eking out a miserable life. Regular firing from across the border keeps most of the people inside their homes. Children would want to go to a primary school if it exists somewhere nearby but again the threat of bullets coming so randomly force the parents to care for the safety of their kids and not expose them to the perennial threat. Same is true of health care. Anybody falling ill must travel a long distance to reach a Healthcare centre to get examined by a medical practitioner. The case of women is more critical and especially when there is a delivery case, the entire household is in panic.
Apart from these difficulties and deprivations, the most pinching problem is scarcity of water in the habitats of Balakot. Women have to walk two to three kilometres each morning and evening to fetch water from a spring in pitchers they need to carry on their heads. Can we imagine what labour and physical exhaustion it means for the women as they do not find a source of drinking water anywhere nearby? All along this hilly tract small springs of water exist at various places separated by three or four kilometres of distance between the two of them. There is no arrangement of connecting these springs with pipes and then supply the drinking water to the population on the border. In fact the PHE Department has never taken notice of the shortage of water faced by the people along the border in Poonch region. The people always ask are not they the citizens of India and do not they have the right to drinking water? Water scarcity is acutely felt during the days of festivals like Eid or marriage parties or condolence meetings etc. when a large number of villagers come together to celebrate a social function. In summer many of these springs dry up causing ore difficulties to the local population.
It has to be remembered that Balakot is known for regular attempts of infiltration made by the people from PoK side. This has made security forces to enforce strict rules of security. Every person has to produce his or her identity card when desiring to visit their homes close to the border. There are so many other hazards with which they are faced. But non availability of drinking water is very acute and the Government shall have to do something to ease this situation. According to our sources under National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP), the Government is committed to providing safe drinking water to uncovered, partially covered areas, increase water quality, cover of rural schools, improve sustainability of sources and systems, besides streamline the operation and ensure maintenance of schemes. Last year, a report published in a claimed that only 34.7 percent of the population in Jammu and Kashmir has access to safe drinking water through taps, while the remaining 65.3 percent use water from unprotected and untreated sources, hand-pumps, rivers, canals, ponds and springs. Health hazards of drinking unprotected water are too well known. Even the women who have to carry water load on their heads for several kilometres are afflicted with neck and shoulder pain and remain confined to bed with no medical advice or facility available easily.
It should be possible for the PHE department to conduct detailed study of border areas where there is scarcity of dinking water and draw a plan of interlinking available water bodies and creating a source for regular supply of drinking water to the local inhabitants on the border. Actually, the Government should have a statutory body put in charge of overall development of the border be it health, education, water or civil supplies etc.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel