MITHI, Dec 30: The people of Thar are not only deprived of amenities such as roads, communication, education and health care but also potable water.
The magnitude of the problem regarding potable water can be gauged from the fact that Tharis have been consuming extremely brackish water since decades.
The brackish water contains more then 8,400 ppm (parts per million) or 13,272 micro mho of total dissolved solids.
The impure water is brought from distant-lying deep wells, which vary in depth from 10 to 600-hundred feet, after going through a lot of trouble.
Men, women and even school-going children have to walk for miles, be it summer or winter, for fetching water.
Tharis are compelled to drink the brackish water even though it is unfit for bathing, washing clothes and irrigation also.
Drinking this water discolours the teeth as its fluoride level is extremely high. Besides, it leads to stomach ailments and bone deformity.
As Thar is an arid region fed by rain, the inhabitants depend upon agriculture and livestock for their livelihood. But lack of water most of the year makes things difficult for them.
It is a widely-acknowledged fact that almost every Thari spends half his lifetime at a well.
A casual visitor to Thar is utterly astonished to witness scores of poor women pulling ropes at the wells so that they can fill their pitchers with water.
A well can be dug at anything between Rs50,000 and Rs200,000, which is beyond the means of most Tharis.
A well is called by any of the following names in Sindhi: khooh, taar, and veri. A considerable number of villages of Tharparkar District are named after the owners of the wells like Pirano-Jo-Taar, Taar Ahmed, Goga Veri, Parche-Ji-Veri, and so on and so forth.
Three tubewells have been installed in Dalan-Jo-Taar, Pochhandeo-Paar, and Bhorilo villages with the assistance of the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund at a cost of Rs3,023,806, Rs2,700,000 and Rs2,749,981 respectively.
Though SAZDA had installed around 36 tube-wells in Thar but a good number of these are not functioning properly owing to minor technical faults or lack of maintenance.
The management of several tube-wells has been handed over to the Village Development Organization.