PESHAWAR, April 16: People are facing numerous difficulties due to the persisting shortage of drinking water in the Karak district as the underground water has become increasingly brackish in the recent years.

Of late, open wells and tube wells in different parts of the district have gone dry due to the receding water table, forcing the residents to do more drilling, which is making the problem more acute.

Although the recent spell of rains improved the water table in many areas, but it is still unfit for human consumption as it contains a lot of non- soluble substances, said engineer Mir Salam Khan of the Barani Area Development Project.

The water shortage is taking its toll..

The children often find little time to do their homework or study their lessons before or after the school time as they have to fetch drinking water.

The women mostly bring water from far off and relatively near Villages. They are the worst hit section of the society.

As a mild summer has set in and the season is getting warmer by the day, the problem is getting worse in the district and the adjacent parts of Kohat and Lakki Marwat districts.

Giving reason for the brackishness of underground water in the Takht Nasrati tehsil, engineer Shahzad Gul of the public engineering department said that during the long drought in the past few years, the saline water in the upper parts flowed to the lower parts, thus making it undrinkable.

He said that the worst affected villages in the Takht Nasrati tehsil including Warana, Seekot, Soordag, Kamali Banda, Latambar and other areas, where the underground water is salty.

The situation would become worse in few years from now if the water table continued to recede or if the existing underground pockets of drinkable water in the districts turned saline, engineer Mir Salam said.

The problem had also been exacerbated by the haphazard drilling of tube wells by government departments and the people of the area to extract water for drinking and irrigation purposes, he said.

The worst affected town of the whole district is Karak itself where the problem had become acute. A number of tube wells of the public health department in the vicinity of the town had gone dry, compelling the department to look for alternative means to overcome the drinking water shortage, residents said.

Villages located near the salt range in the Karak tehsil, including Shaheedan, Srekhwa, Algadi Banda, Darab Kala, Mithakhel and Hafizabad are also badly affected. In these villages, the underground water is totally salty and undrinkable.

A village, Tarkhakoi, which literally means brackish wells, got this name owing the fact that almost all the wells dug in the area are saline and the water is undrinkable.

The problem can be overcome effectively by constructing small dams and reservoirs at feasible points on hill-torrents and natural water courses in the eastern hilly parts of Karak tehsil to store rainwater, which would improve the water table in the lower parts of the district, engineer Mir Salam said.

Besides, long and frequent power outages have also made the problem more critical as the people mostly use electric motor pumps to extract the underground water for use.