Parched Changar residents mull poll boycott

Arun Sharma

Tribune News Service

Anandpur Sahib, May 29

Residents of nearly two dozen villages in the Changar area don’t have access to a basic commodity: water.

Losing all hopes of getting water, villagers are mulling to boycott the upcoming Assembly elections.

The Changar area comprises a cluster of over two dozen villages on the Punjab-Himachal Pradesh border. In the absence of industry or any other commercial activity in the region, the residents are dependent on dairy farming.

Though the Water Supply Department has installed taps in many houses in these villages, the supply is made to just one or two taps installed in streets on alternate days and that too for one to two hours.

During summer, the wells and ponds in villages go dry. As there is no source of irrigation, residents are forced to leave the area with their cattle.

“Though it is not an easy task to camp at a distant place from home with their cattle, we have no other choice to save the livestock,” said Inder of Samlah village camping near the Matharo khud along with his 10 buffaloes.

Every summer it has become a routine for residents in Lakher village, 10 km from Anandpur Sahib, to go without water supply for weeks together.

The only well on the outskirts of the village also go dry and villagers have to carry water from a “bowli”.

Charan Das of Lakher village said since 1970s almost all politicians promised them water for drinking as well as irrigation. However, nothing had been done so far.

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal after going through a report regarding it in these columns two years ago had asked the district administration to solve the problem. The district administration had prepared a Rs 9 crore project for drinking water supply in these villages. However, the project remained only on papers.

Public Health XEN Anil Kumar said the project submitted earlier was rejected and now they have prepared a new project with an estimate of Rs 10.27 crore which was lying with chief engineer for his approval.