CHITRAL: The residents of Orghoch village in Lower Chitral have said that shortage of drinking water could force the entire population to migrate from the village during the upcoming summer as local springs have started drying up due to lack of rainfall this year while there is no other source of water in the area.

Addressing the ‘Press Forum’ held under the aegis of Chitral Press Club, the village notables Mohammad Wali Shah, Gohar Ali, Shah Nadir and others regretted that no government had tried to resolve the problem of shortage of drinking and irrigation water being faced by them.

They said the village located on the outskirts of the district headquarters had about 500 households and the people stood marginalised as they were still deprived of basic facilities. They said that women were forced to fetch water from the river traversing a distance of one kilometre.

They said that over 2,000 acres of arable land remained uncultivated due to paucity of water. They said the people were depended on rains which they harvested for daily consumption and agriculture on a small scale.

The villagers said the issue could be resolved by siphon scheme from the streams of nearby villages of Chitral Gol, Rumbur and Golen, but no government had taken the issue seriously.

They regretted that the government was yet to rehabilitate the area’s school building and road which had been washed away by flash floods in 2015.

The elders said the village needed high schools both for boys and girls while presently there was only one middle school for boys. They said the dropout rate of girls after primary classes was hundred per cent as the people could not send their daughters to distant villages for education.

They complained that primary healthcare facilities were unavailable in the village. However, they expressed their satisfaction on the working of maternity hospital set up by the Aga Khan Health Service.

Published in Dawn, March 12th, 2021