MINGORA: A large number of residents of Barama village staged a protest against the Water and Sanitation Services Company for suspension of water supply to their area for the last two weeks.

The protesters said that they had been facing problems owing to unavailability of water. They criticised WSSC, saying that it had failed to provide proper services to the people of Mingora and its suburbs.

“Our area is located in the mountain and there is no other source of water nearby so we face a big problem as all the people have to cover a distance of about four to five kilometres to fetch water,” said Amir Zeb, a resident of Quanj area in Barama.

They said that most of the people of the area were poor labourers and the unavailability of water had affected their work. “We come home tired after the daylong work and then bring water from long distances till late in the night which also affected our health,” said Sarzamin, another resident. They said that their area was also not cleaned by the sanitation workers.

They threatened to hold a sit-in protest in front of the WSSC office if it failed to restore water supply till Monday.

ANTI-POLIO DRIVE: District health officer Ghulam Subhani said here on Friday that over 492,000 children under five years across the district would be vaccinated during the anti-polio campaign starting on December 18.

He was briefing the stakeholders in a meeting held at the deputy commissioner’s office and attended by officials from the related departments. Swat DC Amir Afaq chaired the meeting.

The DHO said that all arrangements had been finalised for the four-day campaign. Mr Afaq asked the officials to closely monitor the campaign to ensure that no child was missed during vaccination.

Published in Dawn, December 16th, 2017