MANSEHRA: Residents of the Mansehra city and its suburbs on Monday complained about water shortage, and demanded that they be provided connections from the recently-installed water supply line.

“People of different localities are facing water shortage as borewells have dried up due to the declining underground water table. The tehsil municipal administration’s Both Khatta water supply scheme has also dried up,” Mohammad Ayub, a resident, told reporters.

He was flanked by a group of people from Mohallah Lower Channia, Nilan, Zafar Ground, and adjoining areas.

“The TMA recently completed a new water supply scheme and provided connections to several areas of Upper Channia, but Lower Channia and its adjoining localities have yet to be provided with access to this facility,” he said.

Seek connections from newly-installed supply line

Mr Ayub said though KP Assembly Speaker Babar Saleem Swati was pushing for executing the Rs18 billion gravity water supply scheme, it would take years to complete.

“Mr Swati should ensure water supply to the people of Lower Channia, Abbottabad Road and adjoining localities from the newly-installed scheme, also originating from the Both Khattak water source,” he said.

Another resident, Mohammad Bashir Tanoli, said people had taken up the water scarcity issue with Mansehra TMA, seeking connections from the newly-installed pipeline, but to no avail.

“The TMA should immediately extend its already existing pipelines to areas on Abbottabad Road and in the surrounding localities of King Abdullah Teaching Hospital,” he said.

Salary demanded

Chairmen of various village councils on Monday demanded of the government to release the two-month withheld salaries of sanitation workers and drivers, who were appointed for maintaining cleanliness in 194 village councils across the district.

“We have finalised a strategy to stage a sit-in outside the offices of the deputy commissioner and assistant director of the local government if the salary is not paid to the workers within a couple of days,” Basharat Ali Swati, general secretary of the alliance of village and neighbourhood councils’ chairmen, told reporters after a meeting.

Flanked by chairmen of village councils from different parts of the district, he said the government had released three-month salary of sanitation workers December last year. “Since then, not a single penny, not even overhead charges, have been transferred into the village councils’ accounts,” he regretted.

The village councils’ chairmen said their voters were approaching them for provision of civic services, but they were unable to do so as neither development funds nor their honorariums were released.

Published in Dawn, March 3rd, 2026