April 11, 2008	Friday	Rabi-us-Sani 4, 1429

KARACHI, April 10: Alarm bells have started ringing in Mubarak Village of Keamari Town with monsoon approaching fast. The residents of many localities close to the under-construction water reservoir, Mubarak dam, had suffered heavy losses in last year’s monsoon when rains played havoc with their houses and belongings.

They are perturbed over the indifferent attitude adopted by the authorities concerned towards their constant appeals for the completion of the dam construction.

“Ever since the widespread damage caused by last year’s heavy rains, we have been calling on them to get the dam completed to avoid recurrence of such tragedies in the future. However, all our appeals have fallen on deaf ears so far,” said a group of villagers living near the reservoir.

“Unless emergency measures are taken for the completion of the construction work at the dam, monsoon is sure to wreak the havoc again this year,” they warned.

As almost all residents of Mubarak Village are poor fishermen, and most of the houses they live in are built with wooden straws, mud, etc. A large number of these houses were washed away when torrential monsoon rains coupled with strong winds hit the town last year. The rainwater gushed out of the incomplete dam breaking its fragile boundaries and flooding the entire village. Most of the villagers had lost all their belongings, besides their shelters.

The two-century-old village falls along the coastline near Hawkesbay and has a population of around 10,000 souls.

Mohammad Haroon, an elderly villager, said that the construction of the dam had been undertaken in Sept 2002 by the city government under the Drought Emergency Relief Assistance (Dera) with a view to conserving rainwater. “The project was designed to be completed within nine months but the contractor stopped the work after raising a mud-boundary of the reservoir’s bowl,” he added.

Mr Haroon pointed out that the village and its surroundings had the great potential of becoming a very attractive tourist site because of the Arabian Sea and the scenic beauty all around but successive governments never considered developing the area on these lines.

“So much so the villagers don’t have basic facilities like power and drinking water despite the fact that the village falls in the neighbourhood of the Hub dam and Hubco power plant,” he lamented.

The villagers said that they fetch “potable” water from ponds of subsoil water or pool money to buy hydrant water from Karachi.

Referring to the poor road communication system, they said that the only road linking the village with the rest of the city was the main Hawkesbay Road. The section of this road leading to the village had been in dilapidated condition for years but no repair work had ever been undertaken, they added. The village has one primary and one secondary school (the latter being for boys only). Both these schools are without proper education and other facilities. A few years back, a primary school for girls was established but it is still without a woman teacher. The dispensary serving as “hospital” for the big population also lacks minimum health care facilities.

It was as far back as in 1995, that the Sindh government had announced a plan to launch several projects to develop Mubarak Village as a “model village for the fishermen community”. Among these was a project under which a solar energy plant was to be established for the electrification of the village, besides setting up of a 50-line mini-telephone exchange. Another project envisaged was an underground water tank to be built and maintained by the KWSB to ensure availability of water stock for the villagers.

“None of these projects could be kicked off in the next 13 years,” the frustrated villagers moaned.