Anantnag: Residents of Achabal ares in Anantnag on Thursday staged a protest demonstration against Jal Shakti (Water) Department over supplying contaminated water to the area.
The protesters included mainly women, and blocked traffic while shouting slogans for potable water.
“Water is the basic need of life, our issue is about the supply of drinking water. We are being provided contaminated water as a result our children fall ill on a regular basis,” a woman protester said.
Later, police reached the spot and restored the traffic.
However, an officer of the Jal Shakti Department said that Achabal Town is provided water supply from Brengi Nallah after filtration through existing SSFP (steady-state free precession) and augmented with a lift scheme with source of Achabal Spring.
“During the night hours, flash floods had occurred in the upper reaches resulting in choking of SSFP owing to high turbidity. The supplies from Brengi Nallah (Gravity Part) were shut and only the lift part was operational,” he said.
“The existing SSFP is insufficient to meet up the required parameters and to sort out the issue a Rapid Sand Filtration Plant of 0.41 MGD capacity is under execution under JKIDFC,” he added.
“The work stands completed up to 80% and is expected to be completed by the end of current financial year,” he said, adding, “It is worth to mention that with high turbidity in Brengi Nallah, the discharge from Achabal Spring also gets turbid, besides the discharge from Achabal Spring during winters reduces marginally and proves insufficient to meet up the demand of PHE and Fisheries Department and as such cannot prove a sustainable source as demanded by the public.”
The issue will get sorted out once and for all as soon as the RSFP is completed, he added.
(GNS)
