PESHAWAR, Sept 12: About 30,000 inhabitants of Landi Kotal are facing acute shortage of drinking water. Engineers say that the water table in the area has gone down by 30 feet in seven years because of extensive boring and prolonged drought which hit the region in the late 1990s.
Landi Kotal Water and Sanitation Sub-Divisional Officer Qaiser Zaman said at a press briefing in the town on Saturday that the drinking water requirement of the area was about a million gallons a day but the town committee was supplying only 250,000 gallons. The water was being supplied from the Sadukhel booster station and the Landi Khana water supply scheme, he said.
Officials said eight tube-wells had gone dry in the town. The residents said they had been facing a drought-like situation for seven years and the government was yet to solve the problem.
Most of the citizens depend on the springs near the Ali Masjid. Now the natural sources are drying up, forcing a large number of people to purchase drinking water at Re1 per gallon.
The falling water table has affected the ecology of the area and trees have withered. Of the four tube-wells at the Sadukhel booster station, three have dried up. Supply from springs at Landi Khana has reduced.
People on both sides of the Afghan border benefit from the Landi Khana scheme. Under the Durand Line agreement, Pakistan supplies 5,000 gallons of water per hour from the scheme to Afghanistan.
Officials said that the feasibility report for provide water from river Kabul to the town had been completed on the instructions of the NWFP governor's Fata secretariat and the tenders of the project would be floated in a month.
Sources said the Asian Development Bank was interested in financing the project on the conditions that water from it should not be supplied to the security forces deputed in the area and a mechanism for recovery of charges from the consumers should be prepared.
Mr Zaman said the estimated cost of the water supply scheme from Shilman to Landi Kotal was Rs374.9 million. He said three million gallons of water would be provided per day to the area. Water would be brought from river Kabul to Landi Kotal partly through gravity flow and partly through pumping, he said.
