KOHAT, July 10: Warshand is one of the many Kohat villages, which face water shortage due to absence of infrastructure or delayed repairs to damaged pipelines.

Drinking water was supplied to this Sordal union council village in 1993 but the supply was suspended in 1998 after water pumps went out of order due to technical faults.

Later, the Kohat district coordination officer sanctioned Rs1.7 million for fault rectification but the contractor didn’t repair pumps exposing the negligence of the public health engineering department.

The situation has forced women of the village into fetching water from ponds fed by rains for domestic use, including drinking purpose.

However, use of polluted water led to high incidence of water-borne diseases, especially among children.

Former local union council nazim Hayat Khan told Dawn that women of the village had to fetch water from far-flung areas.

He said a power transformer had been installed in the village but it had not been working since long.

Mr Hayat appealed to the executive officer of the public health engineering department to ensure smooth water supply to Warshand village.

Meanwhile, people of the two of the three Shakardarra union councils have complained of water shortage.

They said there had been no water scheme for their Rural-I and Rural-II union councils comprising more than 60 villages and therefore, they had to depend on polluted ponds for water.

Social worker Shafiq told Dawn that on July 15, locals would elect the head of the jirga to take up health, educational, water and electricity issues with the provincial and federal governments for early resolution.