NAROWAL, July 19: Residents of a village have been facing an acute shortage of potable water for the last two months due to which they have to consume contaminated water from hand and electric pumps.

Extreme weather worsened the situation at Nonar village, which is the native area of federal health minister Naseer Khan. The village, having a population of 22,000, also falls in the constituency of the health minister and provincial auqaf minister Pir Syed Saeedul Hassan Shah.

There are two turbines and a tank to supply drinking water to the villagers, but both are out of order these days. The Public Health Engineering Department had completed the water supply scheme worth Rs2.5 million by installing two huge turbines and constructing a tank here few years ago.

However, the department handed over the affairs of the project to a CBO (community-based organization) formed with the consent of the villagers to operate and manage it.

One of the turbines went out of order a year ago and the other failed to cater to the needs of the villagers. Eventually, it also developed some fault two months ago and the villagers had been facing water shortage since then.

When contacted, Tehsil Municipal Officer Muhammad Zahid said the scheme was being managed by the CBO and it was responsible for its repair. He added that the TMA had not received any complaint in this regard so far.

It is learnt that the CBO has not made any serious effort to restore the water supply scheme. Its members, when contacted by this correspondent, said the organization had no funds for repairing the turbines.

They alleged that consumers owed a huge amount to the CBO, as they had not paid their water bills so far. They said they had requested the TMA for help, but to no avail. The villagers have protested unavailability of potable water and demanded that the authorities concerned took stock of the situation.