Poonch residents hold protest against PHE Department

People protesting in Poonch against water scarcity on Thursday. —Excelsior/Harbajan
People protesting in Poonch against water scarcity on Thursday. —Excelsior/Harbajan

Excelsior Correspondent
POONCH, July 7: Hundreds of residents of Poonch city including ladies and kids held a strong protest against Public Health Engineering (PHE) Department over its failure to provide adequate water supply to them especially on Eid and during Ramzaan month.
The protesters assembled near Poonch Fort and blocked the main market for almost one hour while chanting anti- PHE Department slogans.
The protesting residents said that they are facing tremendous hardships due to the non-availability of water for past over one month. “We are being deprived of drinking water from past over one month. The department has miserably failed to provide adequate water supply to them,” they said.
Ramesh Bali said, “we have repeatedly approached to the department that we are not getting regular water supply but the department has never paid any heed to the issue which compelled us to come on the street”
Lal Hussain said, we celebrated Eid without drinking water and due to non availability of water we even did not invite our relatives for the celebration even some of us celebrated Eid in villages due to non availability of water in the Poonch city”.
Junior Engineer (JE) Pawan Dutta and Nb Tehsildar Poonch reached to the spot and assured protesting residents that they will supply water in the evening time so that their sufferings would end.
Meanwhile, after the assurances by officials the protesters dispersed peacefully.